Tsarevich
by yarnybear
Summary: THIS IS A SEQUEL TO MY OTHER STORY. THIS ISN'T YOUR GRANDMOTHER'S SAPPY ROMANCE. Last chapter up, tell me what you think. I'm finally free from this! No more obligations! WHOOT! WHOOT!
1. Alexei Nikolai

**Tsarevich**

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Rick Riordan does, and I envy him.

For those who just read this for the heck of it, it probably won't make sense. You have to read the prequel, "Why Do I Always Run Out of Room When I Choose Titl". It'll all come to you, if you've read the Percy Jackson series.

**Chapter 1**

"Mama, I don't want to move to New York!" I complained, angry at my father.

"_Tsarevich_, your father pays our bills, and you should know how to live on the other side of the world." My mother smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling up. But she looked away, betraying her sadness.

My father lived in New York, managing my grandparents' company, Harmand and Prentiss. He wanted my mama and me to stay with him.

But I didn't want to leave my villa, here in Rome. I lived here most of my life, in Italy, but I was born in Russia. That's the reason, my mother said, that she named me Alexei Nikolai Prentiss.

My friends called me Alex; my mother called me her stupid pet name. I was glad that she didn't call me "prince" in English, because that would be embarrassing. And I was glad that most people were ignorant and didn't know the meaning of _tsarevich_.

I was raised in Italy, skiing the slopes during the holidays, riding the waves of the Mediterranean. I took after my dad, with his tallness and blond streaked hair.

My mother's mind was made up. I said good bye to all of my friends, and packed my bags. As if to console me, my mother got us business class tickets on the plane.

I slouched on the soft, puffy seats, flicking through the movies. There wasn't a great selection. I sighed.

"_Tsarevich_, cheer up. You'll live in the lap of luxury. Why don't we go to Elmont? It's in New York, and you'd really love to see the races." My mother was trying to bribe me.

Elmont, New York, was the home of the Belmont Stakes, one of the diamonds in the Triple Crown. I loved horse races, riding, everything, and my mother knew it.

"Fine." I replied. I was going to make her think that she had bought me off with reluctance, but I was secretly delighted.

On the plane ride, my mother fell asleep. I stared at her bracelet.

It was her favorite bracelet, and it twinkled in the sunlight that filtered through the small, round air plane window. Tiny coins with a bearded man's head stamped on one side and a fist holding a thunder bolt were linked to a golden chain. It was beautiful, and hypnotic, the way they spun. My mother never told me where she got it.

The plane hit the runway, skidding on the painted asphalt. My mother's eyes flew open, and then she smiled with relief.

In the air port, a man with a card with our names on it greeted us. I scowled. My father was never around, always on business, traveling. It was so predictable.

The man picked up our luggage and directed us to a Mercedes parked outside. We got in, and the man, evidently a chauffer drove us.

"Alex, you will live in an apartment that your father has paid for, and you can either go to public or a private school. An assistant can take you shopping for new clothes, but you don't have to go."

I hated private academies. I had been to a few, but the snobs irritated me. So I chose public school. 

In my room in the apartment I just stared out the wall (it was a window and wall at the same time). Helicopters buzzed around the busy flies, the cars far below swirled around the dancing beetles.

I fell asleep.

-

When I woke up, piles of shopping bags stood in corner. I groaned. I did not want to deal with that.

So I went back to sleep.

In the morning, my mother woke me. She looked tired, and I knew she had been unpacking.

"Your first day of school is today. You can have anything you want for breakfast." She glared at me. "Within reason, of course."

She walked out of the room, her bare feet pattering on the carpet. I got dressed, as well as I could. 

Stumbling to the kitchen, I was greeted with a plate full of bacon and eggs. I wolfed it down, washing it down with cold milk. I didn't see any maids.

I wandered downstairs, past the security guards and the saluting door man. There was the chauffer again, with the shiny black car. I could tell that I was to have an escort.

There was a woman inside, her arms full of books. She wore a pant suit, with a little H and P pin on her lapel. She worked for my father.

"Alex…that's what you want to be called, isn't it?"

I nodded.

"My name's Tiffany and I'll be your assistant. If you need anything, just tell me, and I'll make sure it's done." She handed me a card. It was embossed in gold with the company symbol. "Here are your books, and if you want a transfer, call the number on my card."

We rode to school in silence.

I got out, in front of the school. People stared at me. I guess they had never seen a kid with a chauffer. People like me went to the fancy private schools.

I managed to get through lunch all right. I had to get up and say a few sentences for myself. So I composed something short and rather boring.

"My name is Alex, and I moved here from Italy. I'm a sophomore. I like this place okay, but I think the people are noisy and loud." I recited, standing in front of a chalk board.

Some girls giggled at my faint accent.

At lunch, I sat at an empty table. A bunch of kids sat around me. This was obviously their table that I had intruded upon. I started to get up.

A hand gripped my wrist. "Who are you?" It was a girl, with dark brown hair and an olive complexion. She was quite pretty, in a startling, unique way.

"I'm Alexei," I said, a bit scared. She looked like a crazy maniac, and her grip was so strong that she might be able to break my arm.

"He doesn't look like a mobster's son." Some one noted, at the end of the table. It was a girl, with dyed black hair and lots of black eyeliner.

"Who said I was a mobster's son?" I was offended. Just because my name was Alexei didn't mean I was affiliated to the Russian Mafia.

"So…" the first girl drawled. "Let's pretend this is Alcoholics Anonymous. Each of you will say your name and something about you. We'll get to introduce ourselves. I'll go first. My name is Melinda Di Angelo, but you can call me Lin. I'm a junior. I live with my father. I like fencing and martial arts. Next!"

So we all went around in a circle, like group therapy thing.

"My name is Alexei Nicolai Prentiss, and I'm a sophomore." Some of the people raised their eyebrows. I ignored them. "I just moved here from Rome. I live with my mother, and I like to ride horses. I have an Arabian stallion named Mikhail."

The girl with lots of makeup stood up. "My name is Cassile Lawson, and you may call me Casey. I an artist-"

Lin interrupted. "You say you're a suffering artist, but I don't see you suffering, not with two ice creams and bag full of candy in your locker."

"Excuse me, Alex, what I was going to say was: I'm an artist, and in my free time I sing in a rock band."

A boy stood up. "I'm Com. I'm a junior, and I like to…uh…play on computers.." He fidgeted, adjusting his glasses.

Lin smirked. "Com likes to hack computers. Some of the companies here pay him; that's how he can afford five lap tops."

Com blushed, and then he sat back down.

I guess I met my new friends.

**Author's Note: Yep. Alex is in New York, and we'll see what mischief he gets into with his friends. Keep on reviewing, and I'll keep on writing.**

**Spring Break is over, so I'll cut back on updating. I just don't have enough time. **

**I wonder what happens to Lin and Alex…. You could probably tell who their parents are.**

**Yeppers. **


	2. Monochrome

So, what happens next?

Alex likes Lin…

We'll see how this progresses.

**Chapter 2**

**Have you noticed that the second chapter always has something to do with motorcycles?**

**Anyways, this chapter's name is:**

**Monochrome**

On the way to school, I rode with Tiffany. She was always on her Blackberry, or had a lap top perched on top of her knees. Most of the time, we rode in silence, because she was so busy. I knew that she hated having to do such a mundane thing like dropping a kid off at school, when she could be doing important company work

But today was different.

"I have tickets for you and your mother for the race at Belmont Park on Saturday." She said, her fingers tapping on her key board. She wasn't even looking at me.

"Can I bring a friend?" I asked. I wanted to bring Lin. She was so pretty, and interesting, and unique, in a good way.

"Name please?" Tiffany stared at her lap top screen; forehead puckered in concentration, or was it impatience?

"Melinda di Angelo." This was potentially embarrassing.

"A girl? Hm…" Tiffany seemed only the slightest bit interested. "Your father will be glad to hear that. It's about time you got a girlfriend."

I blushed. "She's not my girlfriend!"

"Sure, sure." Tiffanny nodded her head, typing furiously away.

I got out of the car.

I looked for Lin, but I couldn't find her. I knew that Cassile probably knew her whereabouts, so I started combing the hallways.

And I saw her.

She had her hair bleached white, and wasn't wearing as much make up. I walked up to her.

"Cassile! Do you know where Lin is?" 

"Who are _you_?" She looked confused. She looked me over. "And my name isn't Cassile." 

"I'm Alex. And if you're not Cassile, then who are you?" This was weird. Mix ups were always weird.

"Alex…My name is Sandra." She tossed her head. "And _Cassile_ is my sister. I don't know why you're hanging out with _her _when it would be better for everyone if you hung out with us. Like minds gravitate."

"I'm sorry, Sandra, but uh…I have to go, if you can't tell me where Cassile is." I walked away, thoughts whirling.

After a while, I found Cassile in the reference section of the library, poring over books of myths and legends. I noticed that she held a thick volume of Greek mythology.

"Casey, have you seen Lin?" I asked. "I wanted to ask her a question."

"No doubt." Cassile didn't even look up. Her finger traveled over the dense lines of print, lips moving soundlessly. "I think she's at the back of the school. Dunno why, but there's something weird about that girl."

"Thanks, Casey. I met your sister Sandra today. You never told me you had one."

Cassile looked up, surprised. "Cassandra is and idiot."

"Sure, uh, okay," I said. I started to move away, and Cassile went back to her dusty books.

I walked down the hallways, thinking. Cassile had called Lin "weird". Yet Cassile was the one with the dyed hair and black lipstick.

I walked to the back of the school, the place where people sneaked smokes and drinks before, between, and after classes. I didn't know what Lin was doing there, but I hoped it wasn't anything bad.

I saw Lin behind a Dumpster, her chain belt in her hands. Her eyes narrowed. "Alexei. What are you doing here?"

"I would ask the same of you." I shrugged. "Since we're both here, I have some tickets for the Belmont Stakes on Saturday. I was hoping you could come with me."

Lin looked suspicious. "A date? With you? No way."

"Come on, now strings attached. It's a gift from a friend to a friend." I said, putting a smile on my face that I hoped didn't look fake.

Lin shuffled her feet, looking awkward. I noticed that she wore black Converse high tops with the strings removed and replaced with thin chains. Lin seemed to wear a lot of chains, as well as the color black. She wore chains around her wrists, strung around her waist as a belt, wrapped around her ankles. She even wore a silver chain as a head band.

"Fine." She leaned against a Dumpster nonchalantly.

"Do you want me to pick you up?" I was going to be a polite gentleman.

"I can drive." Lin seemed scornful, a scowl twisting her lips.

"But I have the tickets. Why don't you drive to my place, and we can go together?" I wanted to get to know Lin – other than the vague things that I already knew.

"Whatever. Where do you live?"

"Uh…" I tried to remember. I thought back on car trips, realizing that I never noticed where I went. Except….I remembered the fancy apartments and street signs. "I live on Park Avenue."

Lin's eyes narrowed to slits. "I'll be there. Saturday, right?"

I nodded, and Lin stalked away, her chain belt flashing in the sun. I sighed. That was over with, and it wasn't _too_ awkward.

--

The race was tomorrow. I went to sleep, thinking of Lin.

When I woke up, I put on a dress shirt and jeans, trying to look casual, yet not be_ too_ casual. I decided not to get Lin and presents, because she'd probably just throw it away.

I rode the elevator to the lobby of the apartment building, intending to wait for Lin. I sank into the one of the soft leather seats. A cascading fountain nearby burbled merrily. It lulled me to sleep.

It was Lin's sharp tap on the shoulder that woke me. "I'm here. Are you going to drive? Can you even drive?"

"Yes, I can drive. I have a license." I wasn't going to be nasty today, not to Lin.

"Hurry up, then." Lin tapped her foot. "I have better things to do."

I got out of the seat, yawning. "My ride's in the garage."

There was a parking complex nearby, and Lin and I walked to it. New York is too crowded, so there aren't many regular parking lots; everything is built stacked - to save room and look ugly.

There were dim yellow lights in the garage, but I could find my way around. Lin followed me. We passed rows of fancy cars, which belonged to my neighbors. We stopped at my apartment's designated space.

"Whoa…" Lin trailed off, staring at my ride. It was a black and silver Harley Davidson. I didn't tell her that it was my mother's.

"I think there's an extra helmet, somewhere…" I said, rummaging around in a storage box. "Here it is!"

Lin and I pulled on black helmets. I fumbled in my pocket for keys. "Lin, do you know how to ride?"

"Duh." Lin wanted to drive, so I let her. I sat behind, trying to look cool and composed, not the awkward sixteen year old who was thinking the most inappropriate thoughts.

The motor roared, and Lin yelled with delight. I held on to Lin as the bike shot out of its parking space, my arms around her waist. I hoped that this wouldn't be too weird.

**Author's Note: I am a bit lazy with this chapter…It could have been longer.**

**Anyways, Alex and Lin are going to the race. You realize that Alex's mom, Mrs. Prentiss was going too? **

**You've probably realized by now that Mrs. Ptrentiss is Minerva Harmand. And what will she do when she meets Lin di Angelo, Nico's kid?**

**I'm not updating every day, because I don't have time. I wish I did, but school sucks. Easter is fast approaching, and I already have the race scene planned out.**

**This story comes to me like a movie, and its sucks, because I have to put it in words, like a screen play or script or something. **

**Anyways, thanks for the readers who finished my other story and started reading this, and reviewing. That's Jelly and Monster, my only two non anonymous, literate reviewers. Thank you.**


	3. Belmont Park

What happens when Mrs. Prentiss meets Lin?

What happens at the race?

**Chapter 3**

**Questions of Infidelity**

Lin pulled up at the parking lot at Belmont Park. She pulled off her helmet, laughing. I tugged off my helmet, too.

But Lin leaned over and kissed me on the lips. I blushed. This was weird.

"_That_ was for the ride. You'll let me ride it again?" Lin asked, hanging the helmet on the handle bars of the motor cycle.

"Sure!" I was all for it, and hopefully Lin would never know that the bike was my mother's.

I pulled the tickets from my pocket; my mother already had hers. We walked past the gate, and an usher directed us to the stands.

We had a box seat, open to the sky, and had a railing to keep others out. "Well, what are we going to do now?"

"Isn't your mother here?" Lin looked around, at the huge crowds and horses circling the track, warming up.

The small door at the railing clanged open. It was my mother, and she held a tub of popcorn.

"Food!" Lin cried. She took the tub of popcorn, and started eating.

"The lines are miles long," My mother said. She waved a stack of napkins, fanning her face. "And the food is overpriced. That bucket of popcorn cost fifteen dollars. So, _tsarevich_, who is this?" 

"I'm Melinda di Angelo, but you can call me Lin." Lin held out her hand, and my mother shook it gravely. "I go to school with Alex. I'm a junior."

"Lin…You look familiar. Have we met before?" My mother looked thoughtful.

"No, I don't think so. You said you lived in Italy, and me and my father have lived in New York for years."

"But I did live in America for years, when I was younger." My mother, waved her hands, trying to show how many years. 

"Really? My father lived in Los Angeles when he was younger." Lin smiled. "But you probably didn't live there."

"That's a strange coincidence." My mom looked puzzled. "I lived in Los Angeles for seven years."

"My father's name is Nico di Angelo. I probably don't think you've met him." Lin chewed on a kernel of popcorn thoughtfully. 

"Oh dear…" My mother whispered. "Excuse me; I have to make a few phone calls…" She scurried out of the box.

"What's with her?" Lin shoved a handful of popcorn in her mouth. "I wonder if she ever met her father, little prince."

"How did you know…" I trailed off, looking embarrassed. How_ did _she know the meaning of my mother's pet name?

"_Tsarevich_, it means 'royal son'." Lin fingered the rim of the popcorn tub. "But _tsarevich _means that you're not crown prince. That there are other kids…Tell me, Alex, do you have any brother or sisters, any siblings that your parents don't want you to know about?"

"No…I'm a single child." This was getting awkward.

"I would think it was your father…He goes on business trips often, no? Or it could be your mother…She might be the one, who's a little…amoral. After all, she called you _tsarevich_."

"Lin, can you stop?" She was really getting on my nerves. I wished that this could be the nice, sunny outing that was normal, not about messed up family relationships and infidelity.

"Alex, what's your mother's name?" She crunched a few kernels of popcorn. 

I wished the race would start, and this conversation would be over with. "Minerva. Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

Lin frowned. "Minerva…My father said I was named after my mother, who he said was dead. Is it possible, or is the chance too small that they have met? What's her maiden name?"

"How would I know?" I said, fidgeting in my seat. "Guys don't pay attention to stuff like that. And my mother would have told me that she had another kid or something."

"Whatever. Let's just play a game then, if you're so reluctant to talk about this." Lin glanced at the sky, noting the clouds that were rolling in. "It's called the Question Game."

"Sure. How do you play?" I think I knew this game, but I wasn't sure. I hoped it wasn't the Truth Game. Because that made things weird. But I had already accepted the offer, decided to join. 

"You just tell the truth. I ask a question, and I expect you to answer. These are the rules: No slipping in two questions as one, the first question is the one you have to answer, and once the question is out, it's out, and there's nothing you can do except tell the truth. And if you start to say something, you have to finish it." Lin grinned. "Now, I go first. Alex, why do you think your mom looks so sad?"

That alarmed me. I had never thought that my mom was sad or anything, but now that was out, I was wondering…"I think it's because she never really wanted to marry my dad, but she did, because of social pressure or something. And she loved someone else."

"Do you know who that other person was?" Lin leaned forward, her eyes gleaming.

"Excuse me? You just broke your own rule. Does that mean I get a penalty?" Lin was being sneaky, trying to lull me into answering. I wasn't supposed to answer, but if I did, then I would to finish.

"Oh, sorry, that just slipped out. You ask a question, then. And there are no penalties." Lin smiled. "Go ahead, Alex."

"Lin, why do you have to wear chains so much? Is it a fashion statement or something?" I had always wondered about that.

"Because they're good, reliable weapons." Lin pulled her chain belt out. "There are all sorts of…unsavory…characters out there." She swung the chain. "It's my chain whip." Wow. That was weird. She must be totally into self defense, then. Why not use pepper spray or mace? Most girls used them.

"So does that answer your question?" demanded Lin.

I nodded. "It does seem a bit extreme to me. Go ahead, ask your question."

"What does it feel like to have a lot of money?" Lin asked. She stared at the sky, dominated by gloomy grey clouds.

"Well, it makes things easier. I can go to college with bad grades, because my father can pay a donation for a new wing or something." This was a weird question. I wondered why Lin asked it. "But my dad wants me to go to parties, balls, social events. They tire me. And they introduce me to 'debutantes' on their first season or something stupid. I lie to them, put a fake smile on, and they leave me alone. I realize that when they talk to each other, it's all fake. The charming façade, those pretty exteriors hide all that messed up family troubles: infidelity, drugs, hidden scandals. Having money isn't everything."

Lin smiled. "That was very wise, oh great sage." She had a sarcastic tone in her voice.

"Whatever." I said. "Where are you from?"

"I'm from here, New York." Lin was grinning. She was deliberately giving me a vague answer, and I couldn't do anything about it, because it was the truth. But two could play at this game.

"What are you afraid of, Alex?" Lin was smiling, showing off her slightly pointed canines. 

"Oh, you just had to ask that question, did you? Well, I'm afraid of: death, pain, loneliness, being abandoned, and snakes." I counted them off on my fingers. "I think that's about it. Lin, what are _you_ afraid of?"

Lin's smile had faded. She was now scowling. She fiddled with her chain belt, which was lying limply in her hands. "I'm afraid of eternal torture, too. But not of death. After all, it's just going to happen anyway, isn't it? I don't like feeling weak or incapable of something. But I hate not being in control. I don't like having too much expected of me…" She trailed off. Thunder rumbled, and a few drops fell on the ground, darkening the track.

We sat there. The gate opened, and the horses started to run out.

Aurhor's Notes: I wrote this out at school, because school is as boring as…as a retirement community, or a nursing home. 

This is part one of the race scene, and I'm just too lazy to finish it. Besides it's really late right now as I type this.

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF REVIEWING. 

Well, this makes some weird thoughts….I bet you never thought this!

And I actually know you in real life, then that's awkward. I bet you didn't know I could write like this…But I'm rambling now….Good night.

Have a nice life.


	4. Watercolors

Chapter 4

This is real hum dinger of a chapter. I could have made it longer, but it's 11 PM, and I'm really lazy. Sorry, too bad for you. I don't really care.

**Chapter 4**

**Belmont Park Part 2**

**Throwing Up, and the Events After**

The race started. I sat next to Lin, in the fine mist. The horses were churning the hard packed dirt into mud. Mud streaked their flanks, sweat gleamed on their shoulders, and foam dripped from their mouths. The gaily clad jockeys whipped the horses to go faster. The lightning crackled, and I heard the whinny of horses.

My mother opened the gate, and I saw that her hair was lying limply on her shoulders, a bit bedraggled. She looked a bit pale. I decided that it must be the stress and weather. She held two ice creams.

I took one and handed it to Lin. She was so absorbed in the race that she took it without looking. 

"Who do you think is going to win?" I asked, squinting at the track. The rain misted out the features of the horses. Mud splatters on their hides hid the numbers. I could barely tell one horse from another.

"I think it's going to be that horse, Earl Grey. He's in the lead." Lin replied, licking her ice cream without paying an ounce of attention to it.

"I think the winner will be Lady Lightfoot. She's quick, a good sprinter. Earl Grey's got endurance, but he's built for strength, not speed." I went on. "Lady Lightfoot is being held back, do you see that there's no slack on the reins. She isn't being whipped. Obviously, her jockey wants to save her for the last furloughs."

"You might be right…" Lin rubbed her eyes, frowning. Then she hissed, "She should not be here! This goes against all rules…Pegasus's children…."

"Excuse me?" This was strange. I didn't know what she was looking at. She turned to me. 

"I'm sorry; I just thought I knew someone in the crowd over there." Lin waved her arm of the stands vaguely. "It turned out not to be."

We watched the horses. At the last bit of the race, Lady Lightfoot's jockey started goading her with the whip. She speeded up, passing Earl Grey, a dappled stallion. There was a cheer from the crowd and flash of cameras. Lady Lightfoot had one, by a full head. 

Lightfoot was brought panting to the front. Her owner clapped the back of the jockey and poured a bottleful of champagne into the golden trophy cup. He passed it around, everyone taking a sip from the well won prize. Then, when everyone was through, the leftovers were emptied on the ground and replaced with water. The cup was given to Lady Lightfoot. She drank noisily, greedily, as she deserved for winning. I clapped. A wreath of roses was hung about her neck.

I heard a moan from Lin. She had thrown up over the railing, and I could see a dribble of vomit coming from the corner of her mouth. "What's wrong?"

"I'm lactose intolerant." She managed to choke out, and then she emptied her stomach again over someone below's head. I remembered that she had eaten an ice cream, and the popcorn was liberally coated with butter.

Lin held her stomach, her face pale, her mouth taught with pain. I picked her up. "Mom, can we go now? Lin is sick…"

My mother frowned worriedly. "You can take her to our place and clean her up. I'll bring the bike back." She fiddled in her purse for her keys and handed them to me. 

"Bye, mom. See you later." I walked down the steps, holding Lin in my arms. It was hard to keep my balance. Lin writhed in agony, and convulsed. She threw up again. It was surprising to see that Lin was thin, but well muscled. Most girls I knew were soft little wimps. Lin's hands were callused, unlike mine. 

I took Lin's phone from her pocket. She ignored me, and I could see she was really in pain. I went through the speed dial until I found one labeled "Dad". I called that number.

The phone rang for a few seconds, and then it was picked up. A man's voice answered. "Hello? Lin?"

"I'm Alexei Prentiss, and your daughter is sick." I gave him my address where he could find us, and went to the parking lot. 

I found my mother's car, and opened the driver's side door. I put Lin in the back, doing her seat belt up for her. She was whimpering in pain, and I had never seen her like that. Then I remembered that she was afraid of torture, pain, and agony.

Lin curled up in her seat, her face a mask of her pain. I drove my mother's car. It was a black Lincoln, and it smelled like my mother's perfume. 

It took twenty minutes to get to the apartment. I had to unbuckle Lin's seat belt, carry her up to the lobby, into the elevator, and then the apartment. I dropped her onto a sofa. A few minutes later, the door banged open, and there stood my mother, sopping wet. 

She saw Lin on the couch, and her hand flew up to her mouth. "I'll get some water, just wait a few minutes…" She went to the kitchen and came back with a tall white pitcher. The door bell rang. "I'll get it!" 

I was cleaning Lin's face with a towel when I heard the sound of shattering pottery.

I ran over to the door. The floor was littered with shattered pieces of the pitcher. Water ran over the tile floor. But what I found was the most disturbing that the water was tinted pink, like water colors. I saw drops of red, dripped onto the white tile like dark red paint. I thought that it was sort of creepy that I thought of paintings.

My mother's feet and shins were bleeding. She stared at the man in the door way, and he stared back at her wet dress and hair. 

"Min…" He whispered. My mother backed away, her mouth an "O" shape. Blood streamed from various cuts on her legs. 

"What is going on here?" I asked. "Are you Lin's dad? Because she's being sick on the carpet."

"Who are you?" The man's eyes narrowed and he looked menacing. I stepped back, back to the living room.

"Nico!" I heard my mother say. "You should not be here! Just take your daughter and leave."

They both came to the living room, toward Lin, the girl on the couch, and me. I looked up.

"Min…she's your daughter too." The man said softly. 

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!" I screamed. This day was messed up. I had hoped for perfection, but Murphy's Lawjust _had_ to ruin everything.

Lin's father turned to me. My mother slumped onto a couch, her head in her hands. "Who are you, boy?" He asked, rather sharply.

"I'm Alexei Nikolai Prentiss." I just stared at him, taking in his dark hair and the similarity and differences to Lin.

"Prentiss…" He said, so quietly I could barely hear him. "Not that pompous love sick fool…"

"Yes, that 'pompous fool', Nico." My mother held her face in her hands, staring at the floor. "I had no choice."

"Yes, you did, Min. You always had a choice." The man's eyes flashed dangerously. "You could have left and run away with me. Like you did seventeen years ago."

"I don't want a life on the run, Nico." My mother started crying, and the man sat next to her, wrapping his arms around her shaking shoulders. "I don't want to die by violence. You can't save me all the time."

"Why don't you go now, who ever you are," I suggested. This man had way too much familiarity with my mother, and I didn't like that. A stranger like that must be a pervert, I thought.

The man looked up. "You must be the child. You have your mother's fire in you, boy. But don't let it get the best of you." 

"What's happening? Why aren't you leaving? And is my mother Lin's mother?" This was all getting confusing, muddled in my head.

He turned back to my mother. "Min, I can save you. Just let me. You are so sad, I can feel it."

"Not without consequences, Nico. You know it. You can't do or have anything you want, Nico. You've never understood why. You're just a spoiled brat." My mother remarked scathingly. "What we've had…if we ever had anything…it's over now. Just go, Nico, GO!" 

"Spoiled brat, eh, Minerva?" He looked around, gesturing at our apartment. "How much does a place like this cost, Min? Millions, easily. And your son…He's a spoiled, selfish little kid. And you don't understand, Min, do you?" He shook his head sadly.

"Nico, everything has to be paid for. I paid, and I don't want to give up anything more. I'm sorry." My mother shook her head. "Your father, he'd never let us go. He just had to take my first born. _And you let him_." She slapped the man, right across his face.

He got up abruptly. "I know that he's a real Rumplestiltskin, but that's the way things go. At least nothing _really_ bad happened."

"You call him taking my daughter good?! He's your own father!" My mother also got up, and started to stomp towards the door. The man held her arm.

Lin, on the couch stirred. "Dad…you're here." 

**Author's Notes: REVIEW, PLEASE. If what you're thinking is sort of weird, then it's probably true. Next chapter is going to be a real revelation of story. **

**Read my other stories, like Jesus Comes to Camp Half Blood, Why Do I Always Run Out of Room When I Choose Titl, and The Weight of the Sky. **

**I need reviews, or I'll kill everyone off. I"m that bad.**

**I've been doing character sketches (I'm an artist), and it's pretty fun. Cassile is hard, with her attitude and personality and dyed black hair. You were wondering why she was in the library with a book on Greek mythology? Well, review, and you just may see. **

**Peace out.**


	5. Tam Lin

Chapter 5

Family council, in the living room.

Sound's familiar? It's not.

**Chapter 5**

**Tribal Council**

**This **_**is not Survivor**_

The man turned to Lin. "_Kaiserin_, are you all right?"

Lin nodded. "I feel find, but I heard what you were saying. I deduced that Mrs. Prentiss is my mother. Is that true?"

"_Kaiserin_, it'll take a while to explain it. Yes, it is true." The man replied, smiling reassuringly at his daughter, Lin.

"Excuse, me, trespasser," I said. "If you're not going to explain this, then you ought to leave, or I'll call the cops."

"Whenever you can handle it, kid." The man leaned against the couch. His feet were propped up on the coffee table.

"Start by saying who you are and where you came from." I prompted, a bit impatient.

"I am Nico di Angelo. I used to live in Los Angeles, and before that, where ever I could. I am Lin's father; you can get a paternity test. I am fully capable of taking care of her, so there's no use calling the social service."

"How do you know my mother?"

"We've known each other for years, but we drifted away twenty years ago." He answered, looking calm and competent. I wanted to smash his face in.

My mother beckoned me next to her on the couch. "_Tsarevich_, I know this is hard for you to understand, but Nico and I, we had a child together…"

I reeled back in shock. "How could you? I know that father's not around, but that doesn't mean you can just cheat on him. And whose kid am I?"

"I didn't cheat on him, _tsarevich_. That was before I married him." My mother smiled weakly. "You are the son of Minerva and Jonathan Prentiss, you can get it tested if you don't believe it. But Lin…She's your half sister."

LIN WAS MY HALF SISTER!? I liked her, and not in that brother sister way. That was incest, I had incestuous thoughts, and I didn't even know! She had kissed me! MY OWN FREAKIN' SISTER KISSED ME ROMANTICALLY!! Oh dear, this was terrible.

Lin's head shot up. "How? Dad always said that my mother was dead."

Nico's hand gripped the arm rest tightly. "You were never really old enough to understand the truth, Lin. And I didn't want to hurt you."

"I am old enough, father." Lin said in icy tone. "I'm almost eighteen. I have a right to know."

"I know," Nico said resignedly. "Fine, here's the truth. Minerva Harmand died when she was sixteen, from strangulation. _I_ was the one who killed her." He glanced at Lin and me sharply, cutting off our protests.

"Since I am the son of Hades, Lord of the Dead…" He turned to me. "The Greek myths are real, boy, just like your mother taught you. I went to Hades to rescue her, but my lord father always has a price."

"Father never told me his price right out, and he never told you mother at all. He was the beginning, the source of all those child stealers. Have you heard any of them?"

Nico ticked them off on his fingers. "Let's see…Rumplestiltskin, that German folk tale. He wanted to take the maiden's first born child. And the Ballad of Tam Lin. I know you know it Lin, but does your little half brother know?" He looked at me, his eye brow raised in question. I knew that he was testing me.

I remembered learning about ballads in literature, so long ago. I flipped through my mother's book shelf. There were some books…_Tam Lin_, by Pamela Dean! It had been dreadfully boring, those college kids never interested me, and the last forty pages were the only good parts. I remembered that there was a copy of the ballad in the beginning.

"It's a Scottish ballad, isn't it? Janet, that girl who wears the green kirtle and lives at Carterhaugh gets knocked up by a guy named Tam Lin. But he belongs to the Unseelie Court, and the fey queen wants to take him to live with her forever at Halloween. And the only way to save him is to pay the queen with a baby." I remembered the plot

Nico nodded. "Yes, the price was the first born. Lin. My father gave the baby to me, to raise. I don't think he knew that she was his own grand daughter. I never told him. He didn't deserve to know; he would have just taken the baby for himself and raised it underground, away from everyone else."

"Lin, I did it to protect you. Forgive me, but it was for your own good." Nico looked incredibly sad for a moment, then his face cleared and he showed no emotion, not an ounce, once more.

Lin sat there, silent as a rock, taking it all in. "Mrs. Prentiss is a mother…my mother…" She finally said, after a few minutes of nothing but silence.

"Lin, I'm so sorry about all of this…" My mother began, a bit hesitantly. She wrung her hands. "Nico, your father…he took the baby. I never saw you again. I didn't know your name, what you looked like. I tried to forget. But there was something about you, when I first met you at the stands in Belmont Park. I thought it was just old lady superstition or something."

"Mrs. Prentiss…mom. It's okay. There's nothing to forgive, and let's not try to forget." Lin looked hopeful. "Maybe we can just be a family now."

Nico cleared his throat. "We can't be a family. The pieces of the enemy are regrouping. We lost so much last time, and I think that we might have to fight and lose much more. The monsters are gathering, slowly, over twenty years. You may over look them, but they're still there."

"What do you mean, monsters? That Greek myth stuff again?" I asked. This was another bombshell being dropped. How many could a person take before he dons a black trench coat and guns everyone down at school?

"Yes, boy. The monsters – you might have heard of them - are rising again. Look in the newspaper." Nico picked off the _New York Times_ from the coffee table. "'_Killing spree in Seattle'" _He read, off the front page. "It says here that the victims have been rent apart, and their blood drained. It must be the work of the vampires, those filthy parasites."

"There's nothing we can do about it this _infestation_," Nico said, his voice stony. "We have to just try and fight it, hoping for luck and what ever victories. We are spread thin, especially so, after the last battle. So many lost, the halls of Hades were deluged, flooded with lost souls. We try and fight as hard and as much as we can, but we're failing. Our blood is spread thin."

"What do you mean?" I asked, curious. "What blood?"

"The demigod blood, the blood of immortals is in my veins. The Greek gods, they sire children. But they have stopped having so many. It has been the god blood that started this war, and it is god blood that will finish it. It has been a blessing and a curse, this prophecy. I am a half blood, and our blood is running thin. Lin can help as much as she can, but she's only quarter blood. Her Sight is weaker, her reflexes are slower. She's almost _mortal_." Nico said this contemptuously. "Mortals are fleeting and ephemeral, but they come in such huge numbers. Enough to conquer any enemies. Only if they join together, which has never happened in the history of human kind."

My mother gasped. "Nico! You can't drag our kind into your battles!"

Nico snarled at her. "Minerva, you know the prize. Western Civilization. It's falling apart, and we need all the help we can get. Why should we, the children of the gods, shed our blood to save such undeserving people? The children of the titan Prometheus, human kind, should help too. Otherwise, all is lost."

"We can't make all the humans join together." My mother stated, bluntly. "It's simply not possible. Mortals are violent and aggressive, and even I don't have enough money to buy them off."

"We don't need to buy them off. I think I may have an idea…" Nico trailed off, thoughtful.

**Author's Notes: So, how did you like it? Seriously. Review. I think it's a bit weird that both Nico and Min named their kids after each other, and have pet names that are each other's.  Pretty weird, right? **

**I'm getting fed up with all you losers not reviewing. You notice that this story is on the edge of a knife, with two separate pathways. Will Nico's idea work? Or will Western Civilization be lost? **

**And I can make it fall off the blade in anger, and it won't be able to be changed. **_** This**_** is the way to go, I think. I could kill off everyone with one fell swoop. All four birds with one single stone, launched from the keyboard of a furious author.**

_**I'm getting tired of you**_**. That's what Herbert the Pervert from Family Guy said to Lois's dad. And that applies to this situation. **

**So hurry up, and why should only my three faithful reviewers be the only ones to review? This is in the story, about half bloods fighting for mortals.**

**REVIEW OR EVERYONE DIES.**


	6. Tithonus

So, just read on…

Lin and Cassile have issues.

**Chapter 6**

**Vomit for Tithonus**

My mother made Lin and I go to school as usual. We tried not to avoid any weirdness from yesterday, but there was no avoiding it. Lin rode with me in the car to school, and Tiffany tried to start a cheerful conversation.

"You'll have a great day at school, kids!" She said, looking up from the lap top perched on her skinny knees.

We said nothing. The awkward silence killed any thought of making small talk. We got out of the car, me holding the door for Lin. Lin stepped out, her chains making a jingling sound.

We went to class, as usual. Lin went to her calculus class, and I went to European history. Cassile walked with me, since she was in the same class as me.

"So, how was your date with Lin?" She brushed a strand of black hair out of her eyes, and her combat boots echoed on the shiny linoleum tile floor.

"Awful." I answered. I was being careful with my answers. Cassile shouldn't know about Greek gods and what was happening. I couldn't tell mortals, Nico had told me.

I ignored Cassile's questions and slipped into my seat, doing to assigned work. I was busy copying someone else's homework, because I hadn't done it (family council wastes a whole lot of time), when Lin texted me.

**AKP**

**Gt dwn hr. Mnstr trbl, bhnd schl.**

**LDA**

I needed a way to get out of class. The bath room routine wouldn't work, the teacher was too wily and used to the tricks of kids for that to work. I needed to fake sick. But headaches weren't major; I needed something quick and extreme.

I remembered in the book, _The Black Stallion_, the main characters were trapped in the desert with no water, but they had camels. To get the water from the camels' humps, they stuck a riding crop down the throats of the camels, to get them to throw up.

And that's just what I did. I didn't have a riding crop (that's pretty obvious), so I used a finger. I shoved it down my throat, hoping that I wouldn't accidentally choke myself and die.

I gagged on reflex, and then vomit started to pour out of my mouth and onto the desk in front of me. I raised my hand. "Excuse me, Mr. Adair, but can I go to the bath rooms? I kind of threw up on myself."

Mr. Adair looked up from scoring papers; saw the mess on the desk. He said, "Mr. Prentiss, you may go to the nurse, clean your self up, and go home." He went back to his papers, unperturbed.

I got up, and Cassile did too. "Excuse me, Mr. Adair, but Alexei is really sick. May I help him to the nurse's office?" She put on a sickly sweet smile, enough to melt even the most hardened veteran teacher's heart.

With vomit on my shirt, I made my way outside. Every time I happened to encounter a teacher, I put my hand on my mouth and pretend to gag, as if I was going to pour the entire contents of my stomach any second. And student, teacher, or school worker hurried away quickly in distaste. This was really working!

I felt Cassile's hand on my shoulder. "You're faking it, I know. I saw you stick your finger in your mouth."

I shrugged her hand away. "Go away, please, Cassile. I'm sick, and it makes it worse when there's someone standing there watching me while I'm sick."

"It's something about you and Lin, isn't it?" Cassile kept following me. "And you're going to opposite way of the nurse's office and bathrooms. You're going to the back of the school, aren't you?"

"Cassile, now is not the time." I snarled. I wished she'd get the hint and leave.

I shoved open the door at the back of the school. It opened with a creak and a groan, and I made way around the piles and bags of trash and boxes. A heard a roar, and a crack. There were more loud roars. I skirted a pile of stacked boxes, Cassile following me.

I rounded a Dumpster, and then I saw Lin. She had her chain whip in her hands, the flashing steel whirling around in the air, to land with a sharp cracking noise on the man she was attacking. "Lin! That's a man, not a monster that you're fighting!" I yelled, my hands cupped around my mouth.

Lin looked around for me, then she crouched down, avoiding a blow from the man's arms.

"That's not a man," Cassile whispered. She touched my temples for a second, and then my vision started to go blurry. "I just gave you short term Mist Sight. It should wear off in the next few hours."

My vision started to clear again, and I saw the man for who he was. He was a cricket man, and the strangest thing I'd ever seen. He had plates fused to his body, and wings on his back. He had huge glittering eyes, and it was creepy, like from right out of a horror movie.

Lin kept on hitting him with her chain, and I could see some small dents on his exoskeleton. The man's antennae quivered each time a blow struck home. But the Cricket Man was so fast, that he ducked and weaved every time a blow intended for a joint came at him.

"Tithonus…" Cassile stood next to me, staring at the Cricket Man. "He should not be here! All the monsters...I heard…" She trailed off, and then she looked at me sharply. "Alex, shouldn't you be helping her?"

"Well, there isn't anything that I can do." I shrugged. "I don't have a fancy chain like Lin or a gun or anything."

"You can distract it. We can both take some cans and hide behind Dumpsters. You'll jump out from behind and I will too, and we'll both yell." Cassile suggested. She pulled off her combat boots, and then I saw that she had prosthetic plastic legs. She smiled thinly. "Go on, before it notices you." She pulled off the beige colored plastic feet, revealing goat hooves.

I hid behind a Dumpster, filling my arms with used, empty soda cans and beer bottles. I could see Cassile picking up some cement rubble. She saw me, and held her fingers to her lips, a symbol for being quiet. So I waited.

Cassile waved her hand at me, and then started to get up. She pulled herself up to the top of the Dumpster. I did the same. When she got to the top, she started to bang on the lid, and clocked the Cricket Man on the shoulder with a rock. I threw a soda can at it. It might not have been fully empty, because when it hit, a small fountain of orange pop flew out.

The Cricket Man looked up, at the two kids sitting on top of the Dumpster. And that's when Lin struck. With a loud cry, she swung her chain with all her might, hitting him at his neck joint. The head flew off, landing on a pile of candy and chip wrappers.

But the body kept on moving. Lin planted a foot on the decapitated body's chest. She began to hit all the joints. First the shoulders, and then the pelvis. One by one, the parts of the Cricket Man stopped twitching. It lay still, and with a final whack, it started to dissolve. I rubbed my eyes.

The Cricket Man turned to sand right in front of my eyes, which blew away on a wind. Lin tied her belt around her waist, and then her attention turned to Cassile and me.

She strode forward, the chains on her ankles tinkling. "Cassile. I didn't expect to see you here." She gestured at Cassile's goat feet. "You're one of them, aren't you? One of those _Keepers_." She said this with disgust. "You end up killing everyone, you stupid satyrs. We can take care of ourselves. You're really sneaky, Cassile. How did I not see you for what you are?"

"We Keepers protect our half bloods, but in your case, quarter blood," announced Cassile proudly. "And I have an illusion woven by the Master of Mirages, Connor Stoll. He spent hours making me look human. That's why I don't limp around. Like an obvious Keeper."

"Still, keep to the camp." Lin fiddled with her belt. "You attract attention, and where there are satyrs, there are monsters."

"So I'm guessing you know about the recent influx of monsters, Lin." Cassile's goat feet tapped on the ground. "But you're not telling. And I'm guessing that Mr. Pretty Boy, there, your boy friend, is in on it, too."

"Alexei isn't my boy friend," Lin hissed, a hint of menace in her voice. "And you can't convince me to go to that idiot camp of yours. They train the kids to fight, don't they? My father's told me all about it."

"Um…Excuse me…Are you done yet? I really need to get home." I gestured to my vomit stained shirt. "Because we're standing in a filthy alley, and it's not the best place to argue. Why don't you argue some other time, in another place?"

"Fine, whatever." Lin stalked past me. I hailed a taxi.

**Author's Notes: REVIEW. Please. I scanned some pics in, and they're on my profile or look up or what ever you guys call it. Tell me what you think, and remember that I'm not the best artist, and I'm too lazy to shade everything. It looks like crap cartoons, right?**

**Anyways, Cassile is a satyr! What a shocker. Keep on reviewing, and why do I have to write a chapter a day?**

**It's freakin' crazy.**


	7. Trapped in a Cube

So, Cassile is a satyr…

What happens when they all get to the Prentiss's apartment?

Chaos ensues.

Don't forget. **REVIEW!**

**Chapter 7**

**Two Kids, Alone By Themselves**

I opened the door to my apartment walked inside. Lin and Cassile slouched on the couch. I took off my shirt and stuffed it into the washing machine, and went to get a shower while the machine was going.

I washed the vomit off myself, wiping the crusty stains on my neck with a sponge. It was sort of disgusting. After I finished, I pulled on a pair of jeans. I went to check on the washing machine, but it still wasn't finished. So I walked to the living room.

Lin and Cassile had been talking, but they stopped abruptly when they saw me. Lin scowled. She stared at me. I realized that I was half naked. This was awkward.

I threw myself onto the couch. The vomit and blood stains had been removed by a carpet cleaning service, I noticed. "So," I asked. "What were you talking about?"

Cassile smirked. "Lin told me that she won't go to Camp Half Blood."

"Damn right." Lin muttered, under her breath.

"But I've been given special orders and privileges." Cassile seemed smug. "Because of the circumstances, extraordinary measures can be taken to ensure the existence of Western Civilization – and the Gods of Olympus. So, since you aren't willingly going, then I have to use force."

Lin seemed really afraid then. She got up off the couch, but Cassile unwrapped the black studded wrist band from her wrist. She pulled it, and it stretched. The metal studs grew, too. It turned into a black net with metal weights hanging from it.

Lin scrambled for the door. The net flew from Cassile's hands, striking Lin square on the back. She toppled. Lin fell on the coffee table. Her hands scrabbled on the surface for something to use as a weapon. Lin's hands passed over the _Better Homes and Gardens _Magazines. She stopped at a framed photo of me and my mother. Her hands gripped it, and she whispered silently, her hands shaking.

Cassile had retracted the net. As Lin was murmuring over the photo, Cassile wound the net up, and she threw it again. This time, Lin was caught unawares, and she fell, the heavy metal weights knocking her down. The net wrapped around her, and she tried to get free, but it bound her tightly; she couldn't reach for her chains.

Cassile turned to me. "Your turn, Alexei." She hissed, menacing. She pulled off another wrist band, twisting it until it became another net.

I backed away slowly, until I bumped into an ottoman. Cassile struck, and the net flew from her hands. The metal weights hit me first, fast as a striking krait. The weights hurt! Now I could understand the threats of a cat-o-nine-tails. They left red marks on my bare chest. The threads of the net pulled in close, of their own accord. It was worse than a plaster cast.

Cassile stood over me, a triumphant smile plastered over her face. I was on the floor, facing her cloven goat feet. I think I was knocked out, but I wasn't so sure. The last thing I saw was Cassile, her face glowing with pride.

I landed on the hard ground, jarring me awake. I blinked, and late afternoon sunlight blinded my eyes. I could not remember how I got to this place….where was I?

I tried to move my head, but the net was still wrapped around me. I could breath fine, but movement was hard. I saw an identical bundle on the ground next to me. I peered closer. It was Lin, her lips bitten and bleeding, and where the metal studs dug into her, red lumps. She flicked her eyes up, and I realized that there was someone standing over us: Cassile.

She noticed that we were awake. "So, spoiled half-brats, you're awake." She nudged me with her foot, and then gave a painful kick to Lin, who jerked on impact. "That's what you deserve, bitch."

I felt the ground move beneath me. No, it was me who was moving, and someone must be dragging. I tried to see who it was, but the net bound me too close to attempt any movements other than breathing. The grass itched, and when I was pulled over some gravel, I was cut. I caught my breath as I was pulled over another rock. It HURT!

I was dragged in doors, because I stopped seeing the sun. I saw frescoes on the walls…pickers harvesting sun ripened grapes, people stepping on vats of grapes for the juice that poured out of a little hole….

I was dragged into a dim room with no windows. I saw Lin near me, her eyes closed from the injustice and blow to her pride. I imagined that maybe she thought that she could handle anything: any monster, any opponent. But she was wrong.

I went to sleep, a pain on my back.

And when I woke up, I realized that I could move again! The nets had been cut off, and I could see little shreds and strips of the leather that had bound us. The rest had been removed. I tried to brush my hair out of my eyes, but then discovered that my hands had been bound behind my back with plastic cord and strong rope. Lin leaned against a wall, her head drooping on her shoulder, and her hands behind her back. She had been bound, too.

The door opened, and in stepped a man with brown eyes and laughter lines that surrounded them. He had a crease between his eyebrows, from recent stresses. He looked tired. He saw Lin, leaning in the corner, and he got on his knees beside her. He tilted up her chin. Lin's eyes flickered open at the contact.

"Min? Is that you? You look so young…" He peered into her eyes. Lin jerked away from him in disgust. She spat into his face. He wiped the spittle off without a reaction.

"My name isn't Min! I am Melinda!" Lin snarled, in outrage and surprise. "Don't touch me again, or I swear I'll…" She trailed off, realizing her situation.

Min…that name…I think I remembered it from something. And then it hit me. "Min" was my father's nickname for my mother. But did this man know my mother?

"Melinda…you're the quarter blood that they caught today…you and your mortal friend. You reminded me of someone; from so long ago…I must have been mistaken." The man looked Lin over once more, and then he turned to the door. "Adieu," he said, as a final farewell, and then he slammed the door.

Lin turned to me. "I think I may be able to get the ties off…You just need to hop closer to me, and I can try and fix them."

I nodded, and then I crawled on my knees to her. It was hard, because I couldn't use my hands to balance; they were tied behind me uncomfortably. She pushed herself off the wall with her shoulders. She leaned against me, my back to her back.

"Here, rub the knot from the ropes on my wrists…don't be afraid. This will work…in theory." She turned her head slightly, almost facing me. I realized that her forehead was only up to my chin.

"What do you mean, 'in theory'?" I asked. Did this mean that she could die or something?

"Well…I heard that this could work, but I've never really tried it…" Lin replied, looking away from me. "I've never had any reason to test it out, until today."

"Fine." I began to rub the knot against Lin's skin. She hissed at the pain. After a few minutes of sawing at her flesh, she told me to stop.

"I think that's enough," She said. She moved away from me, and I turned to see what she was doing.

She closed her eyes, and began talking to herself. I couldn't really hear what she was saying, but what I did hear, I didn't understand. It must have been a foreign language or something.

After a few minutes, as spark flew from the end of her fingertip. It landed on the cuts that I had made, and I saw the flesh being remade…the cuts closing.

Lin cursed, and then she closed her eyes again. The spark moved from her cuts to the rope. It melted through the plastic cord, and then burned through the ropes. After a few more seconds, the ropes fell off, and Lin rubbed her wrists, trying to get the circulation going again. "Now your turn," she said.

She turned to me, and pointed her finger at my ties. The spark on her wrist moved up her hand, up the finger, until it flew through the air and onto my ropes. Lin concentrated hard.

I felt the warmth of the spark eating through the rope, and the searing heat just before the ropes loosened and fell off. The spark flickered out, and Lin sighed, a sigh of relief.

"Gods, that worked. I wasn't so sure about that." She rubbed her wrists. "I'm not so good at this life force stuff. My father is. He wouldn't even need to cut to get the power going."

"Magic?" I scoffed. "I don't believe in magic."

"Well," Lin snapped, "It'll kill you whether you believe in it or not."

"So what are we going to do now?" I asked. I was getting impatient of just sitting in a bland, windowless room.

"I guess…wait." Lin looked down, a frown on her face. "I sent a message…or tried…just before Cassile got us. I guess we have to wait for my dad to come and rescue us."

I shook my head. "I can't believe Cassile was a traitor. And a satyr. She doesn't really seem to be that kind of person."

"Ah, well…" Lin said, thoughtfully, "Cassile's still dangerous, even if you won't believe her. I should have seen this coming! My father says that deception is around every corner, and some time or another, it'll take you by surprise."

I sighed, and I leaned against the wall.

Lin shot a look at me. "Don't be too comfortable. When someone brings us food, the door will be open, and I have a plan." She smirked to herself, and closed her eyes, leaning her head on my shoulder.

Oh dear. What was Lin going to do?

**Author's Notes: Sorry about the wait, I was on hiatus (very short, but still)…and I had no time. I have to have an hour for myself to slap down whatever I think of. And there's (possibly) going to be a fight scene, where Nico rescues the kids. **

**Yep. Anyways, thanks for reviews. And don't be afraid of reviewing, because I get mad if you don't review. Read my other stories.**

**I attempt to write poetry, so try and read it.**

**Also, there is an Artemis Fowl reference here. Wing Commander Vinyaya told Holly Short about the healing spark trick. If you're smart, you can spot it. **


	8. Fight Scene

What happens in the prison cell?

Will Nico come and rescue them?

The answer is obvious, if you happen to read Author's Notes.

**Chapter 8**

**Reunion (Yeah, again)**

We waited for hours, in the small room, leaning against the walls, lying on the floor. After sitting silently, we heard a tapping sound, as if someone was walking along the hallway outside. The bolt on the door creaked, and we jerked into awareness. Lin shot me a look, and put her finger to her lips. She stood up, and pulled the chain from around her waist.

The door slid open. A satyr stood in the doorway, holding a plastic wrapped covered Styrofoam tray. He looked around. "Where'd the other one go? I was told there were two!"

I then realized that Lin had hidden behind the door. She was invisible when the door opened, unless someone looked behind it, but that wasn't probable. Lin made a face at me, and I realized what I had to do.

"I have to use the bathroom!" I cried, holding my crotch and looking miserable. I hopped around, looking stupid. "I have to go. Like, right_ now_!"

The satyr looked around. "Can't it wait?"

"No! It can't!" I yelled. "If you don't let me go, I'll do it on myself, and you'll be the one who has to clean it up!" Gods, this was awful. Why was I always the one who had to something embarrassing to help Lin? First the vomit, now this.

The satyr walked a few feet more into the room, his goat feet making clicking noises, like a dog. This was Lin's chance. She closed the door, and with a sharp crack, whacked the satyr on the head. He toppled to the ground, senseless. Lin opened the door and walked out, stepping over his body.

We walked through the halls together, staring at the framed art hung on the walls. Most of it was about wine or grapes. I heard a commotion from outside, and I tried to peer out through a stained glass window depicting a cluster of fat, red grapes in a bowl.

We pushed the big double front doors open, and looking to make sure no one was watching, we slipped off the huge wraparound porch to the ornamental shrubbery.

But what caught my attention was a man getting off a motorcycle. I peeked through the green leaves of the bushes. It was Lin's dad, Nico! He really had come to rescue us!

But the man who had came when we were in the prison stood in front of Nico, blocking him. The man's brown hair blew in the slight wind. He crossed his arms over his chest, clearly meaning to block Nico.

"You took my daughter!" He yelled at the man. "Now let me pass!"

"Trespassers aren't allowed to come to this Camp." The man peered closer. "Unless they have god blood. You must be one of us! Come join us, and be reunited with your child."

"Never!" Nico strode forward. "I know what you do to those poor children…forced to fight…you've been kidnapping them, all of them, even the weakest!"

"Those are fighting words," The man pulled out a sword. "Now reap what you have sown!"

Nico pulled out his blade, too. It looked heavy and had two edges on each side, with a channel in the middle to draw away blood. "So this is how it goes…"

Their blades met in the air, with a metallic crack. Suddenly, the Nico's opponent grinned, and I gasped. Five other exact copies or him appeared, with swords and all. They circled Nico, and then they struck, all at once. I couldn't tell the real one from the others.

Nico ducked, falling to his knees and rolling on the ground, and I thought it was too late. I was sure that some of the swords had made contact with his back. He stood back up, hacking away at his six opponents. Three of them lost their swords.

As Nico was fighting, I noticed that his shirt was torn and ripped from sword cuts. The holes were getting bigger as his opponents took slashes at his back. Then, one of the swordsmen thrust extremely quickly, surprising Nico. Nico leaned back, like in the Matrix, but the sword grazed his side and cut a huge gap in his shirt. It started to fall apart.

The pieces fluttered to the ground, borne by a soft wind. Nico deflected a cut with the flat of his sword, and I saw his back. It had four diagonal parallel scars, silvery against his back. His opponent saw it too, and pulled back a slash at the last minute.

"Nico? Is that you?" The man stopped. "You look a lot different…other than being older…"

"Connor Stoll," Nico drawled. "I should have known. You left side defense was always weak, I can see you still have it. Nice trick with those illusions. You can make them have mass now?"

"Yeah, I learned that a decade ago." Connor, that's what I thought his name was, suddenly went still. "Your daughter…she doesn't happen to look like Minerva Harmand for some strange reason, does she?"

Nico grinned, a mocking grin. "The reason isn't so strange. Min is her mother." He leaned nonchalantly on his sword; its point was buried in the ground.

"You had a baby with her?!" Connor seemed outraged. "I thought she didn't love you enough!"

"Well, evidently, she changed her mind. And I wasn't the only one she had a baby with. She has a son, too." Nico was taunting Connor.

"Gods…" Connor trailed off. Then he put his sword up. "Fine, let's settle this."

"No tricks?" Nico was up and alert, his hands flexing on the wire wrapped hilt of his sword. I noticed that the guard was two bones jointed together, like an arm, and the pommel was a bat wing.

"If you'll return the favor." Connor circled Nico, a look of concentration on his face.

Nico struck first, raining blows to Connor's legs and torso. Connor dodged and ducked, his sword weaving a sparkling pattern in the air. They were very evenly matched, I could see. But Connor was the faster one, and Nico had more strength to his blows.

It was Nico who beat Connor. He feinted to the right, with a few complicated twists of his sword. Connor blocked, but it was too late. Nico went for Connor's weak left side, and stabbed him. Connor gasped in pain, his arm falling limp, and the sword dropping from his fingers to land on the ground with a thud.

I heard the roar of a motor cycle, and I turned to look, the bushes whispering as I moved. Nico's head turned in my direction, his eyes narrowed. He walked closer. I held my breath, and hoped he didn't see me. Then I saw my mother.

She looked tired, and her arms were scratched. She hugged Nico, and then she saw Connor, his hand pressed to his side. She stepped toward him, her hand stretched hesitantly forward. "Connor? What happened to you? Is it true that you are the one whose behind all those kids being stolen?"

Connor scowled. "It was your boyfriend. Or whatever he is. Nico. He did this to me. And we must preserve Olympus, and the only way to do that is to get fighters. Because humans are too easily corrupted, too fragile. I'm sure you're with me on this, Min."

"Actually, I'm not." My mother looked stern, her eyes flashing. "I don't see why you have to kidnap peoples' children. The gods aren't really that great, aren't they? All those endless conflicts, sired children…You stole my daughter!"

"It was all for a reason, Min. I'm sorry. But what must be done, must be done." He held her hand, his voice gentle. "But what I can't believe is that you had a child…and the worst part of all…with _him_."

"You realize I can hear you." Nico was cleaning his sword, whistling. "And Min, Alex and Lin are in the bushes over there…" He gestured with the sword. "They think they're slick, but they aren't that good at hiding. Real amateur."

My mother walked to the shrubs. "Alex? Are you there?"

I stood up, and Lin got up, too. "Mom!" We both yelled, and ran to her, giving her a big hug.

Nico and Connor looked strangely awkward, shifting their feet a little. I guess they weren't used to public displays of love, or they didn't really like kids.

"Well, Connor," Nico said, lazily. "You really don't need half bloods to fight in the upcoming war. I have some ideas…they'll possibly work…I'm not so sure, because nothing that I've been thinking of has been done on such a massive scale. But it's all theoretical."

They started to talk, in real technical terms, stuff about "amount of energy", and after "kilowatts" I just started to tune them out.

"Mom," I said, "Cassile turned out to a mole or spy or something, and she wrapped me and Lin up in nets and knocked us out."

Lin grinned. "We got put into some kind of prison in that big farm house, that one with the big porch over there. I got us out, but there's an unconscious satyr locked inside a cell."

My mother smiled. "Oh dear, Lin. You have to do the most dramatic things, don't you?"

**Author's Note: So, hate me, because this is the most boring chapter ever, n'est ce pas?**

**I just did this chapter to get everyone I needed in the same setting. I like adding references. Yep. Nico's idea will be a slightly altered thing from **_**Psychomech**_**. I read that book ages ago; it's pretty good, if you're into science fiction, and all.**

**So I'm finally done with this chap, FINALLY! I like fight scenes, but it's a hassle to put them down on paper. Because when I plan the parts of this story out, it comes to my mind as a movie, with subtitles floating along the bottom. And a screenplay and script. I wonder how long this story will be, and what I'll do after it's finished. Can't really think of anything worth doing…**


	9. Another Grape Themed Chapter

Chapter 9

So, what happens?

Nico and Lin make some big speeches.

An old character is reintroduced.

**Chapter 9**

**Grape Themed Conference Room**

I slept in the farm house, the big house with the veranda and four stories. It was the same house that Lin and I had been imprisoned in. It brought back the bad memories.

But we didn't sleep in a cement cell. We had rooms with grape vine patterned wall paper. Who ever he was, the person who owned this house had an obsession with alcohol. There was a bowl champagne glass on the bedside table, with potpourri. The painting above the grape print comforter was of a bottle of wine and a goblet.

Lin went to sleep in the next room, and it was strange to see her in her night gown. Nico had brought over her toiletries and stuff. I had thoughts about her…but it was strange, wrong. Lin was my sister. Half sister, actually, but I was in no mood to be so picky about it. It reminded me of Oedipus Rex, the guy who killed his dad, married his mom, and had kids with her. I shuddered.

My mother shook my shoulder, and I woke up. She pulled aside the grape purple draperies over the windows, sending a searing sheet of light at me. I covered my eyes, squinting.

"Time to get up, _tsarevich_," She called, pulling the blankets off. I swung my feet out of the bed. "It's a new day, and you're needed in the conference room."

"What for?" I asked, sighing. I was so tired…

"Apparently, you're a witness to the monster epidemic, and they want you to speak." She opened the door, and then stopped. "There'll be breakfast provided, since you'll be hungry." She slammed the door, leaving me anxious and with a gnawing pain in my stomach.

I put on my shoes and some jeans from a suitcase at the foot of my bed. My mom had probably brought it up when I was asleep. I yawned, stretching.

I cleaned up, brushing my hair, and looking at the purplish circles underneath my blue eyes. They looked ugly, like I'd been punched, but there was nothing I could do about it. And it wasn't so extreme that I'd sneak into Lin's room for some makeup.

I walked out of the room, seeing the nickel grape vine sconces holding up electric lights on the walls. There were night lights near the floor, emitting a soft, muted purple light. The carpeting was floral patterned, with red and green grapes intertwined together. At the end of the hallway, I saw the double doors. I guessed that this was the conference room.

So took a deep breath, bracing myself, and grasped the curled grape vine door handle. I hoped that I was confident enough, and I pushed the door open.

There was an oval shaped table, hewn out of a single slab of wood, and had intricate vines and leaves carved on it, like a Celtic pattern. A fat man in a tiger print Hawaiian shirt sat at the head, his feet on the table. He was slurping out a can of Diet Coke, a few drops running down his chin.

Next to him was a man with glasses and a scraggly brown beard in an electric wheel chair. He held a book in his hands, and was flipping through it furiously. My mother sat at one end, Nico beside her. Lin saw opposite them, with an empty chair beside her. I took that this was my seat, and I took my place.

Lin grinned. "I saved you some English muffins."

"Thanks." I said, and I took the proffered platter. It was still warm, the muffin. It had butter on it, a small square that had melted partially. I took a bite, and it was delicious. In quick succession, I had five, and when I was done, Lin handed me a napkin monogrammed with grapes.

The man with the tiger patterned shirt stood up, putting his can down. A satyr placed a coaster on the table just before the can touched the table, preventing a sticky circle mark. "I am Dionysus, for those who don't know. We have a meeting today because Di Angelo over here says he has a good idea to stop this monster problem we've been having. Though I don't really see a problem. It's a little influx, that's all-"

Nico cleared his throat. "We do have a problem." He stood, standing over the people who were leaning back in their chairs. "You, the unobservant, probably have not noticed, but the number of monsters are steadily increasing. You live sheltered lives in the Camp when I live outside. I think there's someone in Hades…who is making the monsters regenerate faster. But let's hear from my daughter, Lin."

Lin stood next to her father, and I lot of people noticed her. They stopped leaning back on two legs of their chairs, stopped fiddling with their pens, and stared at her. And I realized then that she was beautiful. Not the traditional beauty, but she was tough and strong and charismatic, with a proud smile on her lips.

"I saw Pegasi, in Misted form, at the Belmont Stakes, in Elmont, New York, about four days ago. Monsters aren't the only ones that are getting loose. All magical creatures are. In fact, I saw a Roc nest in Central Park a month ago." She frowned. "And you people don't notice, and I don't see what your problem is.

"You've been spoiled, and just because you beat off the first wave, the first battle, doesn't mean you've won the war. The monsters are gathering. I met Tithonus two days ago, and even he, in advanced age, has joined the cause.

"You've been having a false sense of security, just like the enemy wants. Yes, Kronos is back. Snap out of it, people. We need the help of the mortals.

"For those who see the truth, you're not doing anything, and you're doing too much at the same time. Stop kidnapping the children of the gods, especially because they have the blood. Just because they have the blood, doesn't mean they can fight. I don't see why you can make children of the Muses fight for you. My father will explain more." Lin sat back down, a furrow between her eyebrows.

Nico smiled, a thin, grim smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I have an idea, but for all of you who are all for saving everything, who can't risk anything, then you probably won't like it. I've been thinking it over, and you can't save everyone, you can't make a pot roast without killing an animal. So, since humans and heroes are all this together, I thought it was time the mortals contributed something.

"I want to reanimate spirits of the dead with the life force of living humans."

And so the commotion started, and it went on and on. People were arguing left and right, their fists clenched and the voices loud. But one man with graying black hair and sea green eyes stood. "Be quiet, everyone! Nico might be on to something, and it's to save your sorry, ungrateful hides!"

So everyone sat back down, scowls on their faces. They bit back their anger and surprise, the only thing keeping them down was respect for the black haired man.

"It will take the energy of about three billion humans to win. But it will not be death." Nico's eyes scanned over his listeners. "It will be a coma, and it won't be too bad. The emergency services will be overwhelmed, but it will only be for two days at the most."

"I will reanimate the souls of dead heroes, dead fighters, anyone skilled. Since they're already dead, this should make a formidable army. If you're not really sure how I do it, it takes time, and a lot of effort and concentration. But the mortal author Garth Nix explains it vaguely in his Old Kingdom Trilogy. I am a necromancer.

"The spirits can take over the minds of anything, but my instructions, which I have already written, and which you may read, are clear. I have not let any loopholes flaw my plans, and so they will not attack our side. The can emit fear, like my father's Helm of Darkness, to stop a person in his tracks."

"Are you sure this will work?" The green eyed man with black hair asked.

"I am certain; it works out on paper, theoretically. I don't see why not, Percy" Nico said. Then he added. "But we should be careful, because I think the Titan Kronos also knows how to reanimate. Because I have reason to suspect the recent uprising of monsters comes from the reanimated Luke, son of Hermes."

There was uproar at Nico's words. It subsided to quiet chattering when Percy glared, but the hubbub still remained.

"What proof have you?" Percy demanded, his voice cold. "I slew him years ago."

"I traveled to the Underworld, and searched among the spirits, yet I did not find him. I looked everywhere, and I even got my sister to give me the roster. I found his name, but he was labeled "absent". So I suspected. Luke has a gift with words; he can charm a snake, and that is how Kronos has gotten so many recruits. You see the crime rates, lately?"

Percy nodded, his eyes stormy. "I can see we have trouble brewing. This hurricane…I can feel it. I hope that we do not get caught in the eye, with no way out but through the wind."

**Author's Note: Sorry about not updating, it's just that you guys have slacked off on the reviewing part. This story is a product of two groups. I write, and you give encouragement, and a little of what you think, a little criticism. We work together, like a symbiotic relationship. **

**Also, I'm sick. And I wrote this when I was sick. You torturers. **

**Keep on reviewing, and maybe I won't update so much, because I don't feel good. And I'm tired; it's almost 11 PM. My nose is drippy and my throat itches.**


	10. Another Alex

So, what happens?

Lin has an emotional break down.

And they practice fight!

Woo hoo!

Which is pretty cool, if you like fight scenes.

**Chapter 10**

**Another Alex**

I went to sleep troubled. And when I woke up, the sun was already in the sky, and Lin was gone. I checked her room, and don't look at me like that.

So I walked outside after eating the grapes from the bowl on the bedside table. The sun was way up in the sky; it was way past nine o'clock. There were a lot of people outside, the half bloods, or demigods, or whatever. They were training hard. I stopped a passing satyr.

"Have you seen my sister Lin? She has dark brown hair, and wears black and silver." I asked, noting that he held a stack of javelins precariously.

"She's at the archery field. I have to go now, sorry!" He replied, trotting off, a few javelins dropping from his hands.

I followed a path, to, I hoped, was the archery field. And I was lucky; there was Lin, shooting at targets arranged in a semicircle around her. I could see that she had pegged all the bulls eyes. I walked towards her.

"Hey, Lin. You left without me." I was a bit indignant how she treated me, with a glare. Sure, she was my older sister, but we weren't really brother-sister.

She was silent, and she held the silver wire wrapped grip of her black crossbow tightly. There were designs made by the wire, and black feathered ebony shafts lay on the ground, some in a black dyed leather quiver. Some of the crossbow bolts had their points buried in the ground near Lin's feet, and one was held tightly between her teeth.

_Thunk!_ A crossbow bolt hit the white outer edge of the furthermost target, way off center. Lin growled angrily, and taking the shot from her teeth, she nocked it. She pulled the string to her face. _Thunk!_ The bolt landed right next to the last one.

"Lin…are you all right?" I put my hand on her shoulder. Lin shrugged my hand off and continued shooting. _Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_ Went the arrows, creating a feathered line.

"I'm fine!" Lin snarled, drawing the string back for another shot. Her voice softened. "Or as fine as I can be…"

"What do you mean?" I waited when Lin didn't answer. She kept on shooting, arrows forming lines.

"Things are all hoopty-doopy here, Alexei." _Thunk!_ That was another arrow that joined the line. "The war is starting, I can feel it. The spirits are gathering, ready to leave the Underworld. And things aren't so good around here."

"Lin…are you okay? I can help you if you just let me." I was following the shrink's routine. "I'm your brother, it's okay if you don't want to tell me."

Lin frowned, her voice cold…but strangely, it was wavering. "You haven't lived a life like I have. My father and I…we moved all the time, when monsters got too bad. He stayed around to protect and teach me…sometimes I hated him." _Thunk! _A feathered bolt hit the target.

"Life was hard…we fought for our lives, so many, many times. Sometimes I wanted to give up. I hated myself for that, too. I was supposed to be strong, like my father, and what he and everyone expected of me. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that it's no like me, to act like this."

"That's true," I admitted. "I always thought you were strong and kept things to yourself that you would never give up…I guess that's what you want me…everyone to think."

"That's what I want to be!" Lin brushed angry tears away. I had never seen Lin cry before. That shocked me. "I wish I was everything that everyone expected. I hated myself. Suicidal hate, what I had…what I have. But you came along. And you made me compliment myself. But sometimes things are way too hard to take."

I stayed silent.

"I tried suicide, once. My father found me, when I was trying to use a knife. He took it away. So I found a chain, trying to finish what I started. This chain." With a crossbow bolt, she indicated her belt. "_Catena_, her name is. She bound me once…and I bind others with it. My hate fuels me." _Thunk! _An arrow hit the target, the head sinking deep into the wood.

I noticed that Lin was almost out of arrows. There were a few around her feet. Lin picked one up, and strung her bow, not noticing. _Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_ Lin sent out a spray of arrows, faster than I thought possible.

"Suicidal hate…" She whispered, on her last arrow. "Hate…" _Crack!_ The arrow flew crookedly, landing on the ground in front of a target, after bouncing a few times. Lin grimaced. The string of her bow had broken; she had pulled too hard.

And I looked at the targets. The lines of arrows had been forming letters; I was too stupid and unobservant to have noticed it before. _Hate_, they displayed, the capital letters seeming to move, because the wind blew the feathers. Hate was in Lin's heart, and hate had poured out, onto the wood, like a painter and his canvas.

Lin followed my gaze, and her mouth formed the word. "Hate…" She trailed off, looking away.

"So…" I started to say, feeling awkward. Lin had never poured her feelings out like now; this wasn't like her at all. She was crying, a few tears glistening on her cheeks. "Oh, Lin!" I wrapped my arms around her, and she leaned on my shoulder, her tears soaking my sleeve. She shook. After a few minutes, Lin pushed away, rubbing her eyes, and looking as if nothing had happened.

"You should learn how to fight, Alexei, _mon demi-frère_," she said. I knew Italian, and could guess from conjugates that she had called me her "half-brother". "After all, there's a war going on. Plus, we have Capture the Flag in a couple of days."

I frowned. "I don't think I'm physically fit. I don't know how to use a sword. It'd be no use to me except as a club." I was ashamed to admit that I was weaker than a girl. And I was a sexist.

"I'll teach you…in what time we have. You should at least try and learn." Her eyes were red and puffy, and she smiled weakly. "Come on, I think size eight armor would fit you."

So I followed Lin to an armory. She pushed the door open, flicking the lights on. The walls had pegs and racks, filled with weapons. She went to a rack and pulled off a heavy bronze colored breastplate. "Here you go. Do you know how to buckle it on?"

I shook my head, and Lin sighed. She pulled the straps over my shoulders, and tugged the buckles on the sides tightly. "There. Now you need the greaves." With a loud exhalation, she pulled out something that looked like half of a tube, with buckles on the back. I took them from her and attempted to put them on my arms.

Lin sighed again, and she tied the greaves to my feet. I was totally inept. After she was done, she reached onto a rack and pulled out two carved wooden sticks. "These are wooden practice swords. See, no edges. You can't cut anyone, but they will leave a mark."

Lin walked out into the bright sunlight, to the practice field. She threw me a sword, and like a fool, I dropped it. She sighed. "Come on, Alex, don't be such a wimp." She made the first move, a cut at my side. I was too slow, and it hit me. I choked. Lin waited a few minutes until I got my breath back.

"You'll be dead in the real world. You won't last long." She commented, her sword lying limply in her hands. She looked perfectly relaxed.

I struck, swinging my wooden sword at her head. She ducked easily.

Lin retaliated with a series of blows so fast I could barely react. She whacked my shins and knees, and I just threw my sword at randomly, trying to hit her. The blows stopped. I opened my eyes. Lin was no where to be seen. Sure this was a trick, I turned around. Lin wasn't there. But then I felt a slight pressure on my collar bone and someone's breath on my neck.

"You're dead, Alex. Drop your sword." It was Lin's voice, from right behind me.

I dropped my practice sword, which hit the ground with a clatter.

I felt the pressure decrease, so softly, and Lin was in front of me. "You can't just randomly wave your sword around, hoping you'll get lucky and hit something," she lectured. "It leaves your guard right open."

So we started sparring again, and I stopped missing so much. I could never hit Lin, but I could block some blows. At the end, I was panting, on the ground. Lin was standing, not even breathing hard.

"Nice work, there." A boy, maybe eighteen or so, walked up. He was taller than me, and had dirty blonde hair and gray eyes. "I'm Alexander Jackson. Who are you?" He stuck his hand out at Lin, grinning. "But you can call me Alex. My parents are totally fascinated with Greece; my name means 'defender' in Greek."

"I'm Lin, short for Melinda," Lin replied, ignoring his hand. She gestured with her sword at me. "This is Alexei."

"Well, hello, Lin!" The boy seemed friendly. "I couldn't help notice your brilliant sword work. Mind if we practice together?"

"Sure, whatever." Lin tapped her foot, looking at the sky.

"I thought…maybe today…right now." He suggested, pulling a sword from a scabbard at his hip.

"Fine." Lin grabbed her short sword from the baldric on her back. The sword was slightly curved and caught the light, a serrated edge in the inside curve. It was short, compared to this other Alex's, about two and half feet long.

Alexander swung at her, and I realized that Lin's sword was too delicate and thin to block a strong blow like that. Lin ducked, the sword almost grazing the top of her head. And so they fought. Lin's light sword wove a glittering mesh around Alexander, and pinged against his whenever he blocked. Alexander was fast, but not as fast as Lin, but he was stronger. Lin rolled under his sword, laughing, as if playing limbo. They fought, and it was like a dance, both of them stepping in intricate patterns. But the fight ended.

Lin had slipped the point of her sword through Alexander's guard, the tip resting lightly on his neck. But in doing that, she had weakened her own guard, and Alexander's sword was poised at her chest.

"I guess we have a draw…" Alexander admitted, his sword dropping. Lin pulled her sword away, shoving it back into the scabbard on her back. "You're very good, Lin. But your right side is a bit weak. Your sword is too short." With that, he pulled a dagger from his belt, a blade a foot long. He handed it to her, and she took it silently.

"Well, goodbye, Lin. See you later." He gave a cheery wave and was gone.

Lin was staring at the blade. It had a hilt like a fish, with the two parts of the tail as the guard. The fish had a piece of coral in its mouth, as the pommel. "So…where will this go…" she whispered to herself.

**Author's Note: Sorry about taking so long. I have school work and stuff. And you weren't reviewing. Two Alex's. Isn't that weird? And if you don't know, Alex is Percy and Annabeth's kid. Idiots.**

**I wonder when the next chapter is coming out…not very soon. I'm losing interest in this story; it happens every time I decide to write something. And because you don't review, I lose more and more interest.**

**So keep reviewing.**


	11. Flesh and Blood

So, what will happen?

You say my story has gotten boring, and I tell you: Go to the Asphodel Fields.

Just keep reading on, and I promise it'll probably get better.

If you don't think so, I said "probably", n'est ce pas?

**Chapter 11**

**Flesh and Blood**

**L'edition de france**

I went to sleep, thoughts whirling. I could barely sleep, I kept waking up and thinking…Thinking about the way Alexander Jackson looked at Lin. And when the sun rose, I got up. I needed to talk to Lin, so I walked a door down, to her room. I opened it, and there was no sleeping body under the blankets.

The room had been stripped clean; all of Lin's bags were gone. A few balls of paper were in the trash can, everything else had been taken. But there was something shiny partially under the bed; I pulled it out. It was a guide of France, full of colorful pictures. It was the kind of thing that tourists got before visiting a country.

The door squeaked, and Nico, Lin's father, came in. He looked around, his eyes widening at the bare walls, and how the desk was clean; no sign of Lin. His eyes closed, and he sighed. "I should not have said…"

I turned to him, the guide book dangling from my hands. "What didn't you say?" Some of the places were circles in red; a medieval fair, a graveyard.

"I guess there's no more harm…Mortals can't really change the future…" He slumped down into a chair. "Lin knew that the first wave of monsters would come in France. France used to be the seat of Western Civilization: with an Underworld opening. The monsters will leave the opening and attack…I'm not sure exactly when, though…But Lin…she's so high strung…did she say anything to you before she left?"

"She talked to me for a bit…" I replied, a hint of hesitation in my voice. I wasn't sure if I should disclose what Lin had said; she trusted me with her thoughts. But she was headed for danger, and wasn't Nico her father? "She said that she wanted to be strong and competent, like what everyone thought she was."

Nico's eyes closed, and a small tear rolled down his cheek. "My Lin…she has to do this to herself. Lin's pride…she thinks she can't be hurt, but like you, she's only mortal. Sure, she may have strength, the Sight, and reflexes, but she can die, too. Like all of us."

"Do you know exactly where she went?" I asked. I wanted Lin to be safe…and if it I had to, I'd go to help her or rescue her, like a gallant knight.

"I thought she wouldn't be so brash and thoughtless." Nico answered, a thin smile playing over his lips. "But Lin is Lin, and she moves for no man. I think that she happened to overhear that the Underworld opening, in Normandy. The place that used to be under Roman rule, in the north of France."

"I need Lin…she can't die…" I whispered. Then I got up, holding the guidebook tightly in my hands. It formed a tight roll. I left the room, leaving Nico in the chair, his head in his hands.

So I bought a plane ticket with my father's money to go to France. I knew a little French, enough to answer the stewardess's questions on the plane. It was a blonde woman with her hair in a tight bun, wearing a crisply starched uniform with a little pin on her lapel.

"Parlez-vous Français?" She asked, looking attentive.

"Je parle un peu." I replied, mangling the pronunciation. I was horrible at French, and I knew it. I blushed.

"Good, then we'll speak English." She nodded at me, and then left.

The plane landed, jolting me from my mood restless anxiety. I got off, holding the single bag of luggage I'd managed to pack in twenty minutes. I had the bare essentials: money, toiletries, and a single change of clothes. Hopefully I'd be able to buy some.

I opened the guidebook, which, thankfully, I'd packed. I found the things circled in red marker. Normandy….that would mean I'd have to take the train north, from Paris…my fingers traced the route on the fold out map included at the back.

I bought a ticket for a train. France had wonderful transportation systems, I mused. I'd noticed the countless teens on mopeds. They couldn't be older than fourteen or so. According to the guide book, kids didn't have to be eighteen for a driver's license to ride. But they'd have to go under forty five kilometers an hour.

I closed my eyes, just whiling the time away, until my stop. Finally, the doors opened with a whoosh of air, and I stepped out to the platform. Everything here was new and modern, better than America, and Italy. The place that had been circled in the guide book was a medieval fair and battle reenactment thing. "Battle". That word would have gotten Lin's attention, so I hired a taxi to take me.

After I had paid the driver, who sped away without a second glance at me, I looked around. There were tents with pennants, and people in fancy costumes. A woman with a pearl hairnet walked past, her long gown brushing the grass. She was arm in arm with a man in doublet and hose, a large lace ruff tickling his neck. I looked out of place among the gaudy costumes, my plain clothes sticking out.

I walked past them, my head turning left and right. An old woman was selling ribbons from a basket, and another was selling "fresh Espagne oranges" and "comfits". I wondered what comfits were. There was a squawk. A mad had just wrung the neck of a pigeon, and his hands were grasping the neck of a songbird. I looked away. Apparently, people ate birds like that in medieval times.

There was a loud cheer from my left. I turned, following the sound of the commotion, and I saw ladies waving handkerchiefs in the air. I followed their gazes. They were enthralled by a figure in black armor, fighting a knight with a plume on his helmet. The knight wore shining silver plate armor and mail and a surcoat over it all. A white dove was emblazoned on his chest.

The black knight was much smaller, and faster, his sword whistling through the air. A few plump, rather robust women threw roses at the fighters. The black knight had a sword that seemed somehow familiar to me…

And I saw its slightly curved blade, the inside serrated. The way that it moved in elaborate patterns, cleaving the air, how the black knight danced around the silver knight, who was trying valiantly to defend himself.

The silver knight's helmet plume was cut off with a single stroke of the black knight's sword. And then the black knight feinted left, then his sword twisted to the right, the silver knight's sword hand. The silver knight's hand and a half sword fell out of his gauntleted fists, landing on the ground.

The crowd let out a huge cheer, and roses started landing on the fighting ground. A symphony of trumpets blew, and a herald or something like that walked out. He held a heavy staff, and led a large horse to the arena.

"For this charger, our great knight Sir…" He paused, waiting expectantly.

"Di Angelo." The black knight filled in. I knew that voice….And that's when it hit me…the knight wasn't a man; it was my half sister, Lin!

"Sir Di Angelo has won Sir Roger's horse and lance in a duel." The herald waved his staff around, bobbing his head. "And may you ever be triumphant, Sir Di Angelo." With that, he handed the reins to Lin, who mounted the horse without another world.

Sir Roger, for this is who I guessed the silver knight was, pushed up the visor of his helmet. I could see his scowl, and by the way his lips moved, he was cursing.

"The lance please?" The herald stuck his hand out, tapping his feet impatiently. "For has not Sir Di Angelo won it fairly? And you, my lord, has agreed to fight for honor, justice, and chivalry. The king needn't hear about his knight's breakage of oath."

Sir Roger took a lance from a page boy or squire who was at his side. "Here," he said gruffly, and then he turned around. He stalked off, miffed at the blow to his pride. A smaller, younger knight had beaten him in a duel.

The herald took the proffered lance and handed it up to Lin. "Thus, Sir Roger, the champion of duels for five consecutive years, has been beaten! Sir Di Angelo, we hope to see you next year."

Lin nodded, not listening. She gripped the lance, and turned the horse with her knees. The horse had a cloth blanket thing draped over its…his back. It was green and trimmed with brown, large doves sewn onto either side. In the front, round holes were cut for his eyes, and a dappled grey muzzle poked out.

"Lin!" I called. On horseback, she was much higher up than me, and I hoped she could hear. And she did.

Her horse clopped sideways a bit, at the unintended pressure of her legs. Her head turned to me, and her hand lifted to her visor, lifting it an inch. "Alexei? Is that you?" She turned the horse, trotting it to me.

"Yeah, it's me. Your father said you'd be here…and that monsters would be arriving any minute from an abandoned Underworld opening." I shifted a bit, nervous.

"Climb on, then." She answered, looking away. I could see that her hands had tightened on the lance, which had a large banner of a white dove hanging from the shaft. I pulled myself up, noting that the saddle was under the blanket thing. I seated myself behind Lin, which was rather uncomfortable, as she was wearing metal armor. Her head turned back, to me. "The monsters are coming…I can feel it…If dad has summoned the spirits of the dead, then we can fight."

"How?" I bumped up and down, the horse's movements jiggling me in the saddle with every step that he made.

"The monsters are flesh and blood…or as close to flesh and blood as children of gods can be. You can't fight flesh and blood with spirit matter. So I've decided to do something unheard of, at this scale. I need flesh against flesh." She lifted her visor up all the way, looking me in the eyes. "And this happens to be Normandy, a place of warfare: World War II. Isn't it a coincidence? There are huge cemeteries, full of the nameless dead soldiers. With the spirits, I can reanimate the soldiers, and it'll be a fight – flesh and bone against flesh and blood."

I shuddered, and the horse clopped on.

**Author's Note: Yep, warfare. Don't you just love that? Well, I mentioned the French railway system for a reason. And it pertains with warfare.**

**So, review, please. And the reason why I'm not updating so often is because of school, school work, home work, and whole kit and caboodle. Like powerpoints, papers, posters, etc. I hate school. **

**Sorry about that, just review and I'll keep writing. Hm…I'm losing interest in this story.**


	12. A Pleasant Train Ride

Chapter 12

So, what happens next? And am I still boring? I made an extra long chapter, 30 percent more text!

I didn't intend to have a cliff hanger, I guess it is just unintended suspense to me. I have trouble finding them in books, unless they're glaringly obvious.

So just read on, and sorry it takes me so long to write. It takes a day to think up the next chapter, and a couple more hours to have it typed out. Because I have a main idea, but I make the plot to it as I go along.

**Chapter 12**

**A Pleasant Train Ride**

We rode to a cemetery…I think the sign said "Cemetière de Caen", but we were moving too fast and bumping up and down, so I wasn't so sure. We stopped and I was jolted forward, into Lin. I noticed that were in front of a field…planted with lots of white flowers in neat row. But they weren't flowers. They were white crosses…this was the graveyard, the cemetery whose…residents Lin wanted to raise.

Lin swung herself off the saddle with ease, even with her heavy black armor on. She pulled the black helmet off, tucking it in the crook of her arm. I followed. We passed the cemetery gate and Lin stopped. She looked back, at me. "It would be better if you stayed back. I don't know what will happen, but it could be bad."

So I waited behind the gate, peering over to watch Lin. She dropped her helmet on the ground and got to her knees. She pulled her curved sword out from the scabbard on her back, and began to cut. Soon, thin streams of blood dripped down her arms, turning the bright green grass a shining scarlet. She closed her eyes, bowing her head, whispering things in a voice too low for me to hear.

The ground started to rumble, and some of the white grave markers toppled over. A skeletal hand punched up through the grass. I stepped back, back to the dappled grey knight's horse, back to, I hoped, relative safety. More and more skeletal limbs started to punch through the soil, dragging themselves up.

The first one out had a helmet and a rotten uniform. It bowed to Lin. It's jaws moved, making a clacking sound. "We obey, mistress. What is your wish?"

"I want you to follow me. There is an army of monsters that need to be vanquished." Lin declared imperiously. She picked up her forgotten sword and gripped it tightly. "You will need to follow me and my brother. Do not molest the mortals on the way; your goal is to defeat the monsters."

She turned back to me, the skeletons following submissively. More of the skeletons started to pull themselves from the ground. Some of the ones already up turned to help their comrades.

Lin passed the gate, her arms still dripping blood. She looked down, realizing, and closed her eyes tightly, muttering yet another incantation. The wound started to stitch together slowly, then faster and faster, until all that was left were some silver lines crisscrossing her arms. Those too, started to fade away, until there was only Lin's unblemished skin.

Lin mounted the grey horse, still in its gaudy trappings from a medieval fair that we had visited earlier. The knight, Sir Roger, had given Lin his lance. Lin picked it up, hefting its weight. "This is a bit too heavy…but it'll do." She remarked. She turned to the skeleton soldiers, beckoning them with the lance. Their feet rapped on the ground, forming ranks.

I mounted after Lin, and she kicked the horse's flanks, driving it to a quick trot. The skeletons were arranging themselves into neat rows, and some of them had rusty guns perched on their shoulders. One of them held a rotted pennant, with several large gaping holes.

Lin and I rode, and I don't know how long, and Lin's head turned left and right. It looked like she was smelling for something, like a dog. Lin's nose wrinkled in disgust, and then she turned the horse. "The monsters are gathering…even I can smell their stench, their numbers are so big. They seem to be heading for the cities, where they can wreak the most havoc. To Caen, the largest city in Normandy."

We rode, the skeletons following behind. The skeletons seemed to be singing a marching song, but it sounded creepy, with their unearthly wails and clacking jaws. We passed some people in cars, who looked curiously at us. There was a child in the back seat of a silver car, and I waved at him. His round eyes widened, and he tapped the shoulder of his mother, who ignored him.

We rode to the city, the busy seaport of town of Caen. It was the grave site of William the Conqueror, I knew. I'd read it in European history. Things started to get chaotic as people noticed the kids on horses. I think, to them, the skeleton warriors looked like soldiers to the mortals. But luckily, Cassile's charm that she had put on me in that alleyway in New York so many days ago, still worked. I could see monsters, but their forms were wavering, unless I concentrated.

Lin nudged the grey horse faster, and we were charging down the streets. She looked like a knight, with her lance out in front of her, her armor shining in the sun, and the horse with its colorful draperies. Lin pulled the reins, and the horse reared, almost throwing me off. For in front of us, was a milling crowd of monsters. Hellhounds, I could see, and some valkyries bent on destruction. Several snake women, and the cricket man, Tithonus. How did they get here so fast?

The mortals didn't seem to notice anything unusual; when ever they seemed about to bump into a monster, they just walked around. They were left with puzzled expressions, but they went on, ignorant. But Lin and I weren't monsters. The people could see us, on the horse in the middle of the sidewalk. Some began to circle and gawk at us.

We were getting attention, and the monsters' eyes followed the crowd, to the girl on the horse with a lance, dressed up as a knight. They charged, through the middle of the busy street, causing a bus to swerve off its course. Cars bashed into lamp posts and other cars; a pedestrian was hit. The mortal drivers could sense something was wrong, but they couldn't tell what.

Lin screamed, a shrill sound that pierced the confusion. She held her lance aloft, and the horse reared. The skeletal soldiers ran past us, their bones clacking on the asphalt, their antique guns shooting ghostly rounds at the monsters. Lin and I rode at the front of the melee, her lance held out. She knocked monsters over like pins at the bowling alley, making them easy targets for the skeletons.

But we charged through the ranks, to the end. And there was a tiger, growling, its claws out for battle. The horse turned at the last minute, slowing down. The tiger's paw struck out, ripping the fabric covering. I saw that the tiger wasn't really a tiger.

Lin backed the horse up. "It's a rakshasa…I didn't know that they'd come up this north…the northernmost they'd go is Nice…this must be an extreme circumstance…It's a tiger and sorcerer!" She turned the horse, pushing it to a gallop, nearly making me bite my tongue off.

The tiger was creepy. It was a turbaned face with brown skin and a white beard that was melded neatly to the tiger. It was strange looking, and the way that there were so many human and animal hybrids was one disturbing thing about Greek myths.

The tiger was chasing us. Lin was trying to avoid the cars, getting squashed wouldn't help the cause. The horns of the cars blared, and Lin stopped the horse suddenly so many times that I thought I'd fall off. The rakshasa was leaping over cars, leaving dents on the tops. The mortal drivers heard a thump, and felt the dents, but they couldn't see anything but a swift moving orange and black blur.

The horse ran and ran, until foam started to drip from its mouth; sweat soaked the cloth blanket on its back. We were at a railway station, the Metro. These were the arteries of France, bringing in travelers and commuters for a cheap fee. Lin and I dismounted, leaving the horse gasping and wheezing. Lin dropped the lance, leaving it on the ground with a loud clatter.

I heard the loud whinny and growls…I turned away. Lin and I started to run to the trains, but we were stopped by a ticket man. "Ticket please? You must have a ticket to pass this point."

Lin tried to push past him, but he gently but firmly pushed her away. I fumbled in my pocket for some euro bills, which I slapped into his palm. I snatched some tickets from his hands, and we ran. I could hear the rakshasa behind us, growling. It jumped over the ticket salesman, to us.

Lin pushed me forwards. "Just go, Alex! Take the train! I'll try and hold this monster off!" I ran without a second thought, without looking back. I never thought that this might be the last time my sister ever spoke to me.

I got on the train, handing my ticket to the conductor. I got a seat near a window, because it was the only one left. I hoped the monster couldn't and wouldn't see me, come after me, and kill me in my sleep. Gods, I was really hyperventilating, and the adrenaline was rushing through my system, making my fingers twitch and shake.

I heard a thump as the train was taking off. The top of the train had a dent – a large round one. The train sped on, faster and faster. I looked out the window, trying to distract myself from my nerves and my thoughts of Lin. I saw feet with black shoes and ankle chains, sliding down. There was a roar outside. I craned my neck trying to see.

Nobody looked up or payed attention to what was happening. The stupid mortals were oblivious to what danger they were in. The rakshasa was on the roof!

The feet slid down, but there was a punching sound, and a black metal stick was thrust through the roof. The legs started to disappear, get pulled back up. The stick was pulled back out, leaving a hole.

There were snarls and shrieks from outside, and some of Lin's cries. Thumping was heard, and I could see a foot slip off the side of the train, but was quickly retracted. The thumping seemed to move…they must be footsteps, and that meant that someone was moving on the tops of the carriages.

"Next stop – Le Havre!" the conductor cried. He went back to reading his newspaper, ignorant of the fight that was going on the roof.

The train started to slow down with a high pitched shrieking sound. Before the doors were fully opened, I ran out, to the platform, looking up, and hoping for the best.

Lin was lying on her back on the top of the carriage, the rakshasa pinning her down. From somewhere, she pulled a short dagger, and jabbed it in the rakshasa's face. It was Alexander Jackson's fish hilt dagger. The rakshasa's head bobbed back a bit, clawing at its face. But then its attention went back to Lin, and it pounced. That was when Lin threw herself off the train, landing on the brick platform floor with a thud and a crack. Her sword rattled down after her.

I gaped at her open mouthed with horror, but I couldn't do anything without attracting the rakshasa's attention. It jumped off neatly, landing silently, like the great cat it was. It stalked forward.

Lin tried to reach for her sword, but it had fallen four feet away. She was reaching with her left hand, which wasn't her sword hand. Lin normally fought with her right hand, and I saw that she couldn't move it. So that was what that crack was; her arm was broken in the fall.

The rakshasa padded forward. The turbaned head grinned at her, black lips pulling back to reveal two rows of sharp, filed teeth. Lin shrunk back, but she was on the ground, and her arm was broken. The rakshasa would pounce if she tried to make a sudden move.

The rakshasa raised a paw, and a single claw popped out of the black pad. It smiled menacingly, an evil look in its eyes. The paw lowered, to Lin's neck. As it was about to make the final stroke, the killing cut, a blade whistled out of the air.

The rakshasa's head fell off, dropping from his shoulders to the bricked floor. It turned to sand, which the wind blew away, leaving five claws rolling on the ground. The claws stopped moving. Who had killed the tiger man? I turned, and my eyes widened with shock.

It was Alexander Jackson, looking rather proud of himself, leaning against his sword like a Southern gentleman on his cane. I asked myself, _what was he doing here?_

**Author's Note: Mr. Jackson? What is he doing here? An explanation is in the next chapter, because I've planned it out that far. I wonder how much action you have to put in a story before people stop calling you boring? Because I have some hidden ammunition somewhere, hidden for a rainy day…**

**So just keep reviewing, and everything will be okay. **


	13. Constantinople

This story is a taking a turn for the boring side again, but realize that I have no time anymore.

What with state tests, homework, school, studying, projects, and limited computer time, I don't have time to write anymore. Sorry, but that's just the way that life goes.

Just keep on reading the meager portions I give out, and be glad I'm adding around 30 percent more text.

**Chapter 13**

**Constantinople **

**(it's in Turkey, and it's currently Istanbul, for you ignorants)**

"Jackson?" I hissed out, crouched on the ground next to Lin, "what are you doing here?"

He grinned, a bright smile that could have gotten every girl in the train station on her knees. Except, I hoped, Lin. "I'm here to save her." He pointed the tip of his sword at Lin, who was lying curled up in pain on the ground.

"How? We've got no medicines, and any doctor we get her too will be suspicious." I sat, Indian-style on the ground, making a small pile with the rakshasa's claws.

Alexander sat down next to me, picking one of the claws up, and holding it to the light. "This should work…I read about it, and since a rakshasa is part sorcerer, some magic should have leaked…" With that, he swung his sword, smashing the claw with the pommel stone. "This'll work, I think." He hit the pommel stone to the claw again, leaving a small powder pile of shattered fragments. He picked a pinch of it, and held it to Lin's nose.

Lin breathed in, ever so shallowly, and a few flecks went up her nose. She took a larger breath, inhaling more of the rakshasa claw powder. Lin's eyes fluttered, then she propped herself up on her elbows, and turned coughing. Alexander thumped her vigorously on the back, until she quieted. As she looked up from discharging the contents of her stomach, her eyes widened, a furrow between the brows. She reached for her sword, which was a few feet away, and held it protectively to her.

"What are you doing?" She growled, her voice hoarse from the coughing. She slid her sword back into her baldric, and tried to stand, legs quivering. With a _thump!_ she fell to her knees, unsteady.

"Helping you." Alexander smiled. "Or trying to. Here." He gripped her elbow, and helped Lin stand. She got to her feet shakily, a grimace on her face. "The magic should finish the healing process in a few hours. Meanwhile, you should take a rest."

Lin shook her head, pulling her arm from his. "No! I don't have time! I have to go: there are other places to see, more monsters to fight!" She stomped off, but Alexander caught her hand.

"Please, just rest. You can't help the battle if you're weak and helpless. Just get some food, and then you can go." He took her elbow again, like a proper gentleman to a well bred lady. Except Lin was nowhere near that, with her ripped, bloodied clothes, dirt streaked face, and silvery chains. I followed them.

Alexander led Lin out of the station, into the bright sunlight of the city of Le Havre. Le Havre was a bustling sea side town, a port of trade, and second largest city in the province of Normandy.

There were a few side walk cafés, so we got seats at a table in the front. There were large round umbrellas in the middle of the tables, and rectangular chalkboard menus near the café building.

A waiter in a white apron came immediately after we were seated, holding a pad of paper and a menu. Lin turned to him, a fake smile on her face, and ordered a quiche, _s'il vous plait_?

Alexander didn't order, so I asked for a crêpe. I needed sugar, and I was hungry. Sugar could steady my shattered nerves, unlike a lot of people. The waiter nodded and left.

Lin broke the frosty silence. "So, how did you find me, Monsieur Jackson?" Her hands were on the cast iron table, gripping the sides tightly. I could feel her barely restrained anger.

"I knew it would come to this." Alexander looked calm, and knew he was making Lin mad. "I hacked the airline company. I knew it was obvious that you'd use JFK. And I found you on the passenger list. And after _he,_" he looked at me, "left, I knew for sure. You were going to Normandy. And when I got to Caen, I followed the monsters, which led me to Le Havre. Nice action with the rakshasa, by the way, but fighting on a moving surface makes you lower your guard on the sides."

Lin scowled. "You have no business following me! I can handle this all by myself! I don't need your help."

"But you did. Without me, you'd be coughing out your last breaths on the hard ground in a foreign country. And even _he_ couldn't help, worthless mortal that he is."

Lin got up, and snarled. "Don't you ever say that again, or I'll personally your lungs out through your mouth with my sword, and feed it to you! Alexei is better than you, you worthless-"

The waiter came, a strange expression on his face. He held a quiche and a plate of creepers with multiple cups of toppings. I remembered that most French people learned a foreign language in school. And this man, the waiter, probably knew English.

Lin blushed, a furious shade of red, and sat back down. She picked up her fork and poked the quiche, which let a puff of steam. She whispered angrily to Alexander. "You stay away, you hear? I've got stuff to do, and I don't need you."

I picked at my crêpe, my appetite lost. I pretended not to listen, and fiddled with a small bowl of chocolate sauce. I poured it over my crêpe, eating tiny bites.

Alexander glared at the table top, the shade of the umbrella hiding his features. "The monsters are gathering. Luke, son of Hermes, is back, and getting as many allies as possible. He's been traveling, to any place where there is or has been Western Civilization; he's going to any place where there's civilization at all. My father told me this before I left." He looked away. "He's been traveling, signing on anybody who believes his foolish lies and promises.

"I asked his father. Luke has gone to England; he's enlisting the help of the dryads, gnomes, and goblins. He's moving to Scotland, getting the Unseelie Queen's promise, and all of her court. He'll get the kelpies, the monster of the loch, anything. Then on to Ireland, with the leprechauns."

"Why all these other monsters?" Lin asked, taking a tiny bite of her quiche. "These creatures aren't the customary sort…"

Alexander turned to Lin, a thin smile on his face. "This is a battle for the Earth. And why stick to Greek myths, when there's the whole world as the prize? There's no sense limiting yourself, not when you could do so much more. Luke is taking the world by storm, with his sweet talking and honey coated lies."

So they went on talking, and I drifted off in a sugar induced haze. I hadn't slept in ages, and I was tired, so very, very tired. And someone was shaking my shoulder. Hm…why was my head buried in my arms…and why was it so dark? I regained bleary consciousness and I saw Lin bent over me.

"Wake up, sleepy head." She looked impatient, biting her lip in nervousness. "We have to go…soon."

"Where?" I asked. I had zoned out at the café, and things came to me, fuzzy recollections. "I don't want to travel."

Lin bit her lip again, leaving a red welt. "You aren't going. It's been decided. When you were passed out, Alex and I….we're going to Constantinople on the Orient Express."

"WHAT?! Without me?" I was so furious. All I had done for Lin, and given her. But she was Lin, and she had the save the world, no matter how clichéd that sounded.

"I'm so sorry…but you can't fight, you can barely hold your own, even against a weaker opponent." Lin sat down, pulling an iron chair back with a scraping grate.

I sighed. "I guess, good luck, then. But Lin…can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

"You'll probably feel weird after this." I admitted.

"No I won't. I won't laugh at you or anything." It was hard to see her in the dark, but a street lamp was reflected from the chain around her wrist.

"Lin…I love you. But not as brother and sister." I said this with reluctance, wishing I'd bitten my tongue, kept my feelings in…In a way, I was a lot like Lin. "But in another universe, and if we weren't brother and sister, I wonder what might have happened."

Lin was silent for a few minutes, an awkward silence, a pause that stretched on and on, but only in my mind. "I don't know. I love you too, Alexei. I guess we could move to Alabama…but things are complicated. I have to go now." She started to get up, pushing the white painted metal chair back. But I caught her wrist before she could leave.

"Don't get yourself killed, Lin." With that, I kissed her on the lips, like that time days ago, at Belmont Park.

"I hope not….But I can only do the best I can." So Lin walked off, without a second glance at me. To Constantinople with Alexander Jackson.

So I stood there for a few silent moments, watching Lin walk off. And my thoughts in turmoil, I did the only thing I could.

I went home.

Home. Not the apartment in New York, but to my mother's Roman villa in Italy. With the terra cotta tiles, the paved stone floors, the beautiful skyline. I missed Lin, but I would have to do without her. For weren't such unique things as frail as blossoms, where a gust of wind could blow off all the petals?

My house, it stood, empty. I walked up the path, and lifted up the red tile, the one surrounded by slightly yellow tiles. It lifted up smoothly, revealing a plastic box containing a ring of keys, and a tin with "emergency supplies". I had never opened that tin up; there had never been any use for it before.

So I left it, and unlocked the door. The air was still and stale; no one had been in here for a few weeks. I opened the window, and breathed in. This was truly my home, close to the Mediterranean. It was sun baked, bright, and sunny. And quite unlike cloudy, dirty New York City.

For a couple of days, I lived by myself, eating, and sleeping. I was trying to forget that Western Civilization was on a decline, and that Luke was raising an army of monster warriors.

But I could never forget.

Because Lin came back.

There was a knock on my front door, as I was eating sorbet in the living room. I was surprised, because no one knew I was here, no my friends, and I wouldn't get any mail.

I opened to the door, and there stood Lin. Her clothes were torn and ragged, and she had parallel gouges in her face, as if some giant, angry cat had taken a swipe at her. The cuts ran from her temple to her cheek, and were dotted with drips of partially dried blood.

"Lin?" I asked softly. I stepped forward, into the sunlight, the hot Mediterranean sun. I helped Lin into the house, and it was disturbing to see that her hair was matted with dried blood, and there were suspicious maroon stains on her shirt. The chain around her waist had metallic red splatters on it too.

Lin was so tired, I could feel her trembling in my arms. I brought her to my room, and then went outside, to the walkway. Lifting the tile up, I grabbed the tin. The emergency was here, and maybe there was something helpful, like medicine.

I pulled off the lid, letting it clatter onto the walk, and then ran inside. There were waxed paper bundles tied with string, and a few small vial of a honey colored liquid. I opened the waxed paper, and there were small golden brown squares, like what I had imagined lembas bread looked like.

Lin was sleeping, a deep sleep where her breaths rattled in and out of her lungs, like she was deathly sick. I shook her awake. She jerked, and her eyes flicked open, trying to get to her feet, but I held her down.

"Lin…I have some food for you, but I'm not sure…" I crumbled the bread up and mixed some of the amber colored liquid, making a paste, which I dissolved in a glass of water on the bedside table. The water turned cloudy, little yellow crumbs floating around. "Lin, drink this; it may help."

I put the glass to Lin's lips, and slowly, she began to drink it. Drops spilt down the rim, sloshing over the cup and onto the bed. Lin's shaking hands stopped quivering. I gave her the glass. When she finished, I just sat at the foot of the bed.

"Lin, this fighting is killing you…" I began to say, and then hesitated. "You don't' have to fight, you know? You're killing yourself. Please, don't die for this cause, you're worth a lot more than that."

"I have to!" Lin's hands twisted the blankets. Her voice was hoarse and grating. "Without me, Western Civilization would fall entirely apart…and besides, the Kraken is coming…"

"Kraken?" That name had seemed familiar, but forgotten at the same time. But then I remembered those sailor's stories of a giant sea monster who'd take down ships with a single blow. "You can't fight something that big. Please Lin, just stop fighting. Maybe we can work something out…I may have an idea."

**Author's Note: I'm getting bored and losing interest, considering going on a semi-permanent hiatus. Also, why am I writing Percy Jackson fics, if I could be doing other great authors? Hm…Because a comedy/adventure series is not really on my regular reading list.**

**I have so much school work, to get ready for state wide testing, and fiction doesn't really have a place on my schedule.**

**Just review, and hate me for incest.**


	14. Kraken's Warning

Just keep reading and reviewing.

The characters will probably end up having to travel in the next few chapters. And my fingers are getting tired.

If I happen to know you in real life, I beat you! You haven't touched your story (if you have one, that is) in weeks, and I've typed up a hundred thousand words!!

So, a little tip of the hat to numerous authors who have given me good ideas.

Thank you.

**Chapter 14**

**Kraken's Warning**

Lin and I were sitting on the roof top of the Roman villa, just sitting. There were some wizened, stunted old olive trees in pots in the corners, around the cast iron patio furniture. The sunset was stunning, as if an autistic child had dipped his grubby fingers into post of paint and smeared it over the skyline. There were large banks of clouds in the west, stained a deep crimson by the sun. And in the east, the sky turned from peach and pink, blending to a deep violet and Copenhagen blue.

"Lin." Lin and I were sitting in the black iron chairs, the backs strips of iron twisted and braided together into a design of flowering vines. "What's going to happen with the Kraken now? And Luke…is it possible to stop him? Or are we just going to die, with no hope of saving ourselves or anyone else?"

Lin pressed her lips together, a thin, grim line. "I think…we'll just have to see. Ask the Kraken at the docks tomorrow, when it arrives." Her fingers tapped the iron table, her nails making a_ pinging _noise, like little bells. I tried not to think of church bells, announcing death.

"What do you mean, talk to the Kraken?" I demanded, leaning forwards a bit in my chair. It squeaked.

"We'll just have to see." Lin leaned back, closing her eyes, the setting sun's light on her face turning it a dark red, as if stained by blood. It made the four parallel scars on her cheek more visible. "It'll arrive at the Mediterranean tomorrow, and we'll be at the docks."

"So, what happened at Constantinople?" I said, hoping the welcome change of subject would leave Lin off guard, and maybe she'd give me a straight answer for once.

"Nothing much. Alex and I rode the Orient Express okay; I don't think there were any monsters on board, unless they were too well hidden and disguised to detect. But it was when we got off that was really…bad." She replied, choosing her words slowly and carefully, trying not to let me get the wrong impression.

I waited in silence, hoping that she'd go on, and not skip or hide the truth.

"Somehow, Luke got the help of the Marid and Ifrit, indigenous tribes of djinn. He told them that Kronos would protect them if it came to war, only if they'd exterminate two of their enemies: Me and Alex." She bit her lip, leaving a red indentation. "They had sphinxes, too, I don't know how they got them…and we fought as well as we could. Alex told me to run, and gave me some kind of magical blessing, because I got to the sea and there was a seal. He must have sacrificed something big for that…." She trailed off, her eyes stormy.

"So, do you know what happened to him?"

"I hope he got out, but I'm not so sure…" Lin shook her head, turning her head away so I couldn't see her expression.

And shamefully, I felt joy for this, hoping that Alexander Jackson was dead. Because I was a bit jealous of him, and this was selfish, but…I brushed away this thought and sighed. Alexander Jackson was Lin's second cousin.

ooo

The next day, Lin and I hired a taxi to take us to the busy docks of Rome. It was close to Vatican City, that home of the Pope and his seven hundred priests. It seemed a normal day, if a bit cloudy.

We walked to the docks, watching the fishing boats and the sea gulls whirling above the tall masts, the waves lapping at the wooden supports of the dock. Lin and I walked to the longest pier, going as far out as we could, escaping civilization and the smell of fish. A sea wind blew, moist and hot and salty. It was sticky and humid, but the slightest bit cool, because it was still the morning.

We just sat at the end of the pier, our feet dangling off the edge, but high off the water, since it was low tide right now. The endless cawing of the sea gulls, and the waves hitting the pier supports almost lulled me to sleep. I was sleepy; I hated getting up in the mornings.

Lin craned her neck forward, alert. Then suddenly, she pointed, her index finger in the direction of a suspicious wave. "Look! I think that's the Kraken!"

I looked, my eyes following the path indicated by her finger. And I saw that there was a wave, much higher than the others. It rose up, higher and higher, and I realized it wasn't a wave. It was more like a tube, a straw that was thin and pointed at the tip. It was a tentacle, rising high above the waves, but unnoticed by the Italian fishermen in their frail little boats.

A bulge appeared from the waves, and more and more tentacles popped out of the water, getting closer to us. Lin stayed where she was, perched at the end of the pier, but I got up and started to back away. I knew that was cowardly, and I was a coward, but my fear got the best of me. So I started running, and stopped to look one hundred paces from Lin.

The Kraken thing was close to Lin, and since the sea wind was blowing in my direction, I could hear her, if only faintly.

The Kraken's tentacle rose above Lin, its dark shadow hovering above her. Lin got up, backing away, slowly, biting her lip in fear and surprise. "STOP!" She cried pulling out the knife that Alexander Jackson had given her.

And the tentacle stopped suddenly, in mid air, about to strike. I walked forward cautiously, my feet making dull thumps on the wooden floor of the pier. Lin was holding the knife up by the hilt, like she was an exorcist holding a crucifix to a blood thirsty vampire. And it worked.

Lin brandished the dagger like Van Helsing with a crucifix, and the tentacle recoiled. Lin was more confident, striding forward to the edge of the pier, making the Kraken's tentacle back away.

"Is Luke, son of Hermes, goading you to do this?" Her voice was loud and proud, with no signs of fear. Her voice was strong, no quavering or hesitating.

The Kraken's cone shaped head rose above the crests of the waves, revealing a huge, round eye. It didn't blink. "He promised me life if I destroyed you, and punishment if I didn't…his sweet words beguiled me…who are you, little hero?" The voice was strange, like the sounds you make trying to talk underwater at the swimming pool, distorted.

Lin stood tall, the dagger still held high in her hands. "I am Melinda, granddaughter of Lord Hades. And you, Kraken, have been misled, misguided to evil by the silver tongue of Luke, son of Hermes."

The Kraken sighed, a rush of salty wind, a breeze that blew to the land and ruffled Lin's hair. "I have been…it has been ages since I have met one such as Luke. But if it comes to war…then I must back Olympus, for if I do not, then I will end up like _him_, Aurelias the turncoat. So under pain of death, I will let you go, and bid you good luck in your journeys. You do wish to defeat Kronos, do you not?" The tentacles waved in the air, weaving slimy knots.

Lin nodded, somber. "Yes, my brother and I, we do." She nodded to me, and then turned her attention back on the Kraken. "But forgive me, for I do not know…who is this Aurelias?"

"Aurelias…" The Kraken's voice trailed off, its eyes turning sideways, its tentacles momentarily still. "Aurelias." It repeated, with a bit more conviction in its watery voice than before. "He is a leftover, a remnant from the creation of the Earth. He is powerful, very much so, and he is hiding. He may be the one you seek, the one who turns the balance, tips the scales to your side. Yet his trickery and deceit…his motives aren't always clear."

"Is he enough to take Kronos down?" Lin asked, the wind blowing strands of hair into her face. She didn't brush them away.

"Perhaps…perhaps not. His power has waned over the centuries; I myself haven't seen or heard anything about him for years. It has been so long…but to be on the safe side, you have to travel to the Roof of the World, and there you will find the Root of Time, and perhaps, with luck, you can turn it, and beat this Luke boy at enlisting the help of immortals and monsters." The Kraken was looking anxious now, turning its heavy body back and forth, as if looking for hidden enemies.

"Why would I want to sign up monsters?" Lin scoffed. She seemed cautious and wary, too, fidgeting and looking uncomfortable.

"Because, little girl, your enemy is Kronos! And the more allies you get, the more chance you stand on winning! You don't understand, do you? We monsters, even me, we are tortured and bribed with false promises and threatened to do Kronos's bidding. We want to escape, if we can…but lately, no one can help us. But, perhaps…you can release us. You just have to travel to the Roof of the World, and make time go backwards; therefore, you can help use before Luke comes around with his lies." The Kraken seemed genuinely afraid right now.

"Where is this Roof of the World?" Lin asked. I could see that she was looking for hidden enemies, too, like the Kraken.

"It's the highest peak, in Nepal. Mount Everest. But beware, Aurelias-" The Kraken was suddenly cut off. A tentacle flew up into the air.

My eyes followed it. And I saw that it had been severed from the main body, and was dripping green gooey blood, with acrid fumes. And the Kraken was gone, diving underwater, the sea boiling and roiling. A few more tentacles bobbed up, severed body parts.

There was a loud thumping sound. Lin, Alexander's knife clutched tightly in her hands, was pounding down the pier, her dark hair flying out behind her. I got the hint and started running, too. As we made it to the dock, there was a sharp crack, a splintering sound. The pier had been broken apart by a falling tentacle.

Lin kneeled on her knees on the ground, gasping for air. I waited for her to regain her breath.

"The Kraken…it's been attacked by agents of Kronos! We have to go now, to the Roof of the World…and the Kraken didn't even say what to beware of!" She got up, her legs shaking, panting for breath.

So I took her hand and ran far from the docks, hoping that the monsters of Luke and Kronos weren't following.

**Author's Note: I have school, and no one's been reviewing, so it's going to take longer to have these chapters in. Plus, it's getting near time for end of the year final exams, and that means my computer time will be more and more limited.**

**Sorry, but there's nothing I can do. But there's something you can do. You can review and inspire me to write. Which sounds cheesy, but it's true.**

**Anyways, sorry for the weeklong wait, and I'm losing interest in this story…I mean there's only so much you can do before you get bored.**

**Just keep on reviewing.**


	15. Aurelias

So, what happens next? Read on to find out.

No offense if you're albino. There are so many evil albino stereotypes out there.

(Cough, Silas, Cough.)

Like Dan Brown's book.

So what side is this albino on?

**Chapter 15**

**Aurelias**

"Lin…where are you going?" I panted out, following her. A stitch in my side ached, and wished the pain would just go away. I followed Lin through the busy streets of Rome, my feet hitting the cobbles with a painful smack. Every step hurt like hell, and I was so tired.

"We have to go – the agents of Kronos are after us." Lin jogged, her sword clutched so tightly in her hands that her knuckles were white. I noticed there were tiny, thin white scars on the knuckles. "That's why the Kraken's dead. And why we have to run. We have to get to Nepal; the Roof of the World is there. And we're running out of time."

We got to the Roman villa, with the terra cotta tiles reflecting the hot noonday sun. Lin pushed open the door, and ran to her room. She began to stuff clothing, weapons, anything into her duffel bag. I helped her, shoving messy piles of shirts and a few sheathed daggers into the side pockets.

"We need supplies. We'll be mountain climbing, and some stores here sell stuff that people use to climb the Alps; they shouldn't be much different from the stuff that we need to climb the Himalayas." Lin smiled, a thin smile that didn't reach her eyes. She zipped the bag and slung it over her back, and bolted downstairs, me following.

The afternoon passed as a blur. We were rushing from one shop to another, charging everything on my credit card. Lin bought packs of freeze dried food, heat trapping blankets and tents, climbing gear and heavy boots. We got to the airport just as the last plane to Nepal was about to leave, earning a glare from the stewardess.

Lin slept on the plane, and I kept watch. As the plane landed, I shook her shoulder, jolting her awake. We got off, carrying our few bags. Lin hadn't gotten too much, because we'd need the speed.

The airport was small and dingy, with broken fluorescent lights and cracked plastic seats I the waiting room. I was glad to leave it, because I was certain that I saw nest of cockroaches under the baggage claim table.

We didn't hire a guide; Lin didn't want mortals to know anything, afraid that they would tip Kronos off for money. Because a lot of people here were poor, with sunken eyes and gaunt bodies. They looked hungry, and would probably like to make a few bucks.

The first part of climbing was pretty easy. It wasn't a steep incline, but a gradual slope with a few rocks that needed to be maneuvered around. But as the day wore on, there were less plants, and more rocks. My feet were tired; the heavy rubber soled climbing boots weighing me down. The pack strap dug into my shoulder, unbalancing me as a climbed.

But Lin carried more weight than I. There were beads of sweat that dripped down her forehead, soaking the neckline of her shirt and where the strap of the bag hit her shoulder, a thick dark line.

We climbed till sunset, and the temperature began to drop, making my hands lose feeling and my breath frost the air. It was cold, and since I was sweating, I was freezing. I couldn't move my toes in my boots. Or could I? Because I couldn't feel it. The sweat beads froze, making me even colder, and my breath whistled through my lips.

One more step, one more step…

This was the steady beat of my feet, and I tried to tune out my coldness, but everything I thought of to distract me always got back to how cold it was. One more step. This phrase burned itself into my head, until the moon rose, the stars shone.

And what bright stars they were! There wasn't much light pollution here, and the few clouds in the sky couldn't obscure the brilliant white shine. Like snow! And this thought brought me back to how cold I was.

Lin tapped my shoulder. I turned, and I saw that she was as tired and cold as I was. She had bitten her chapped lips, cracking the skin, and drops of blood were on her chin. Her teeth chattered, her voice shook.

"We need to rest…I think there's a cave or something up there; it should take away some of the wind that's blowing our body heat away." She set off, barely lifting her feet. Her head was lowered and I followed.

The cave was pretty big, and there was a rough gravel floor that crunched under my feet. I sighed, and helped Lin unpack a few blankets and ground sheets. We built a small fire out of small, oily shrubs at the mouth of the cave, so the smoke could leave.

I wanted to sleep but I was hungry. There was a gnawing hunger in my stomach. Earlier, I had tried to quash this feeling, but now it was back, and stronger than ever. Lin brought me a square of fruit cake and some dried beef. The beef was tough, but it helped to assuage the hunger in my belly. I dropped to sleep, letting Lin keep watch.

The next day was even worse. It turned out that I had developed blisters on my feet and my shoulder, from the heavy boots and the strap of the back pack. The strap cut into my blisters, popping them and making them even more excruciatingly painful. And then blisters formed over blisters, making me grit my teeth and think of other things to distract me from my agony.

We walked for hours, eating dried fruit to keep up our energy, resting once in a while to drink from springs. At first as I was wary of drinking water straight from nature, but my thirst took over.

Lin looked at me, while I was splashing some of the ice cold water on my face, trying to wash away the sticky sweat that coated my face. "Some of our food is missing."

"So?" I cupped the water, bringing it over my head.

"Are you sure you're not…you know, indulging?" She had no expression.

"Wait, you think I'm stealing food?" I was indignant. "I'm eating the same amount you are!"

"Look, I'm not trying to be accusing or anything, but some of our food is missing. And since I'm not eating it, then who is?" She waited for me to say something, but I didn't. So she sighed and kept on walking.

As the sun set, the air grew colder, until both our legs trembled just with the effort of putting one step in front of another. So Lin managed to find another cave. It was a medium sized one, with a moderately high ceiling and a few bushes in the front that could be made into a campfire.

Lin took watch again, and I went to sleep with a meager meal of dried meat barely filling my rumbling stomach. I noticed that Lin watched me carefully, pretending not to. I knew that she was waiting for me to take food, and then she'd pounce, the essence of fury and righteous anger.

But what woke me was a roar of pain and jingle of metal – Catena, Lin's chain. My eyes flew open, and I scrambled to my feet. Throwing more wood into the fire, my eyes blurring in pain from the sudden light. And when my eyes adjusted, they opened wide in confusion.

Because there was Lin. She had the chain wrapped around the neck of a bear. And it wasn't just any bear. It was a white bear, with chestnut colored eyes, like a polar bear. But it was too small: It was about the size of a large black bear or a small grizzly.

Lin had the chain around the neck of the bear, and she jumped on its back, out of range of it heavy claws that could break a spine with a single smack, and the bared, sharp teeth. She was whispering to herself, words I couldn't hear over the growls over the beast.

"Definio!" she cried, and the bear roared, louder than I could have thought possible. The sound echoed around the cave, then outside, I heard echoes returning. It sounded like hundreds of bears, from all the parts of the mountain. But I knew that the sound echoed off all of the mountains of the Himalayas.

Lin jumped off the now quiet bear. But she didn't bring her chain back. It was still wrapped around the neck of the bear, and the ends fused together to make a chain collar. And the bear was now submissive. It followed Lin, but tossed its head when she ordered it to sit down and behave. I could feel its anger, and I myself was cautious of this beast.

"So, a granddaughter of Hades is looking for the Roof of the World…" The bear stepped into the light, its scornful voice echoing the cave.

This bear could speak! Sure, I wasn't as surprised as I would have been a month ago, before I met Lin, but now I was sort of getting into the hang of monsters around every corner. But this was surprising. Talking animals? They only came out of Narnia, not real life.

But that was when I noticed that the eyes of the bear weren't chestnut colored, as I had originally thought. In the dim light, its eyes looked reddish brown. But here, in the light of the fire, I saw that the bear's eyes were red, a darkish pink. This bear, with its white fur and pink nose, was an albino.

"Yeah, I am looking for the Roof," Lin retorted, standing over the bear. "And now who are you to steal my food and try to stop me?"

"You don't know me?" The bear grinned, pulling back black lips to reveal truly frightening set of milk white teeth. "I'll give you a clue.

"What side he chose he wouldn't say

The Twelve caught him and made him pay

His valued freedom the gods could take

And this was the decision the Twelve would make."

Lin stopped, her brow furrowing in concentration. "I think I've heard that poem before. About a man who wouldn't help the gods in the war against the Titans millennia ago. Wasn't he called the Traitor, the Betrayer, and the Liar?"

The bear chuckled, a low throaty sound that was almost a growl. "So is that what they call me these days? But always, there's always a piece of the truth, but distorted till it's almost lie. I didn't help the gods. But I never aided the Titans either. And it was the mistake of my life."

"I think I've heard of you. The gods took away your freedom and confined you, right?" Lin sat down, her back to the fire, the dancing flames throwing shadows on the bare rock walls of the cave.

"Yes, I was known as the Wanderer, the Traveler once. But I was confined millennia ago to these mountains. And I daren't show my face, for fear of more…creative punishments. But it seems that I've been bound again. Hm…the strength of silver multiplied with spells, an enchantment of blood. You must be very strong, for a quarter blood. But the element of surprise has helped you."

"Yeah." Lin nodded, the fire making shadows on her face so I couldn't see her expression. "You were the Traitor, weren't you? That means you must be-"

The bear cut her off. "Aye, Aurelias. I was once free, to roam the world and gather knowledge. But the gods started a war, and I refused to help. They asked me once, twice, thrice, to help, but I refused. I wanted to travel, not dedicate my life to combat. So the gods won, and I was imprisoned."

"Did you know that the gods are fighting the Titans again?"

"And you must be asking for my help." The bear turned its head, the fire making the pink eyes flash.

"Yes, I do. I've bound you." Lin seemed quite proud of this achievement.

"Then I say 'no'." The bear declared, grinning.

"You can't! I've bound you!" Lin cried, getting to her feet.

"Yes, that's true, but you haven't broken me. And your binding isn't the strongest. There are some loopholes to his spell." The bear prodded its collar, looking at it inquisitively. "Yes, I see one. I'm not confined to this shape." And with that, it transformed into a man garbed in a grey cloak.

The man was an albino, with fair white blond hair and piercing pink eyes. I would have laughed at him; he looked so much like rabbit. But now wasn't the time.

"Well, even if you aren't going to fight for us, I am still your master, and order you to obey!" Lin sounded angry, like a child that hadn't gotten what it wanted for Christmas. "And you've said it yourself. You've got no other choice."

**Author's Note: This is an extra special edition, with thirty percent more text. Now, what exactly is Aurelias, and will the gods lose because he won't join them?**

**So just keep reviewing, and criticize me, but tell me why.**

**Because it doesn't really help me if you just say this is "crap" and not tell me why. Because I can't correct any mistakes, and you'll just be seeing more crap in the next chapter.**

**So if you really don't want to see "crap", just attempt to tell me what I'm doing wrong. Because it'd really help me, unlike some people.**

**So, I wonder if this "Honest" person can tell me what I've done wrong, and why this story is crap. I actually read your guide, even though it's not PJO fiction. And I seem to have the grammar and spelling and plot in order. And the descriptions. I've stayed with the point of view of the main character, like you said in your guide. But still, do tell me why this is "crap".**

**Wait a sec, I've been going over my reviews. And I found this by Honest101:**

"_a.nyways, you write pretty well. The sentences are nice, and grammar and vocabulary are good. I'm an atheist too, so high five0! but ya, this could be a bit offensive to christain.s i wouldn't want it if someone made fun of me being an atheist or something like that, ya... have a nice day! keep on writing that story with nico di angelo and min though be cause i like that a lot._"

**So, if you liked it, then why call it crap? Unless you just like to do that to people...**


	16. Malay Tiger Trap

So, more fun on the mountain!

Just read on and review, please. I think my writing is getting better, and I think I've gotten some skills, practicing on these stories. Yay!

I think I've gotten back in the hang of writing more regularly, but after this, I'll need some time to make up a plot. I mean, I have the ending in sight, and quite soon, but I just need the right actions to get me to the good ending.

**Chapter 16**

**Malay Tiger Trap**

I went to sleep, drifting off, and my dreams were of dancing white bears with glittering silver wings…

Suddenly I felt a gust of freezing wind, and my eyes fluttered open. I was cold, and goose bumps formed on my forearms. I saw Lin standing over me, the heat trapping blankets in hands, hastily been folded and stuffed into the packs. I groaned.

"You'll have to get up. There's some toffee in that plastic bag over there, if you're hungry. We may be able to reach the Roof by the end of tonight, if we go fast enough. But the temperature and weather leave something to be desired." Lin noted, glancing out through the mouth of the cave. "Aurelias, you'll be carrying stuff, too."

I pushed myself up, trying to get used to the frigid air. Lin handed me a coat. "It's plenty cold out there, and the clouds are building up…Hopefully the storm will break tomorrow, not today." She seemed quite afraid if that happened. Then she smiled consolingly. "This is the hardest part, even without the unwelcome advent of a storm. The slope is higher, the rocks sharper. There are some hidden crevasses, coated with a layer of thin ice. So watch where you step; those hidden pits are like Malay tiger traps, not like you've ever heard of them."

But I knew what Malay tiger traps were. They were pits filled with sharpened stakes, with a thin net covered in leaves, branches, and other detritus placed carefully on top. An unwary tiger, or some other animal, would step uncaringly and it would fall down. If it was lucky, it'd be killed instantly, its head landing on one of the sharp wooden stakes. But if it wasn't…then I'd be speared through the side, or through a limb. And it'd be in pain until it died of blood loss, or the hunter returned and finished it off. I shuddered.

So I followed Lin and Aurelias outside that cave, where the wind blasted at us. I shivered, cold, even through the coat. Because we were outside, the wind blew all out body heat. I reminisced about the relative warmth of the cave. I slid one foot in front of the other, feeling each patch of slick gravel before putting my foot on it. I noticed that Aurelias walked out in front, in man form. He wore no shoes, just his bare feet lightly crossing the icy rocks. His pack didn't look like it weighed him down. I scowled; he was probably used to traveling.

Lin caught up to him, and the weak rays of the sun reflected off the metal chain looped around his neck. "You can fight and use magic, you know; the gods are distracted with the war, and they won't notice you. They have better things to do than note the activities of a certain creature that they banished millennia ago. Make the storm go away."

He turned to her, his cloak whipping around him in the wind. "I wouldn't. Ever heard of the butterfly effect? If I make that storm disappear, there are consequences that we would never consider. But you'd never think of that, naïve child."

She frowned. "I'm your master, and I'm not naïve!"

"Yes, you command me, but your spell is weak. You can control me, but not very well. And my magic is something that you can never control." He grinned sardonically, revealing his milky white teeth, pointed at the tips. "Because my magic is quite different from yours. In the beginning all magic was the same: a raw uncontrolled force. But Mother Rhea changed it…but not all of it. The unchanged part is the magic that the Titans use; it's fueled by hate and the misery of souls. The kind that you use is Rhea's. It's bound like me, within in words and sounds and thoughts and ideas.

"But my kind is neither the original nor yours. My kind is unique, and few in the world have it or dare to use it. It was the magic that wasn't consumed by the creation of bound magic, and remained separate. We have different magics; that's why you can't make me change the clouds or weather. But you did bind me.

"We all live on this Earth, and because of that, we have material bodies. You bound my physical form, but not my mental or metaphysical." He smiled bitterly again, his filed teeth visible. "And that is enough." And so quietly that I could hear him, he whispered to himself, "for now."

Lin was quiet now, digesting these facts. And I was thinking, too, not paying attention, like Lin. Because there was a sharp cry that rent the air, reverberating around the mountains. My head jerked up, looking to make sure everyone was safe. I saw Aurelias, and I was here…but where was Lin?

And that's when I saw that there was a black hole where Lin had stood, a gaping pit that she had fallen through. I pulled off my pack and placed it on a nearby rock, slithering on my belly over the ice, peering down into the hole. And I saw Lin. She had fallen through, but she landed on a ledge. But the ledge was covered in stalagmites. And she had landed on one; the tip of it stuck out from her side, and her face was a mask of pain.

I turned, looking for something to help Lin. And I noticed that Aurelias was just standing there, a pleasant smile on his face. He sat next to the hole, his feet dangling in, looking nonchalant.

"Aren't you going to help her?" I demanded, a shrill note of anger and annoyance and care in my voice. "Or are you just going to sit there, like a stupid, grinning fool! Do something!"

Aurelias laughed, a deep, barking laugh that sounded like the growl of a bear mixed with a few drops of manic hilarity. "Miss I-can-do-everything-and-don't-need-your-help has gotten herself into her own messes, and since she can take care of everything, she'll get herself out of her messes." And with a nod to me, he said, "That means 'no'."

"She's your master!" And drawing a few conclusions hoping I was right, I shrilled out, "And if she dies, and you do nothing, won't your guilt get you? And if it doesn't, you'll be stuck forever and ever with a stupid freakin' chain around your neck! Because dead people can't undo spells." I hoped I was right, and I wasn't, then hopefully there wouldn't be any extreme consequences.

His eyes closed, and I saw the dark blue veins on his eyelids, easily visible through his pale skin. His pale eyelashes fluttered. "There it's done. How did you know?"

There was a thump and a loud cry of agony. I turned on my heel, tears of relief in my eyes. Because Aurelias had lifted Lin out of the pit and dumped her on the ground in front of me. Her eyes were squeezed shut in pain, and there was a dark stain on her jacket that turned the ice a pinkish color.

"You need to fix her!" I cried, clenching my fists.

"I need to?" He seemed surprised, and there was a faint smile that hovered around his thin lips. "I don't need anything. It's all you mortals. You want, want, want, and you never thank or apologize for what you do. I don't need to do anything."

I sighed, muttering curses to the sky, and picked up Lin, who squeaked in pain. And because I had to pick her up, I couldn't take my own pack, which still sat on the rock. And Lin's pack was still in the icy crevasse, irretrievable. So were losing food at an alarming rate. The only pack still left was Aurelias's.

I was tired and I had to sling Lin over my back in a fireman's lift, making her even more uncomfortable. Aurelias walked ahead, oblivious to Lin's condition or my own, whistling cheerfully to himself.

I decided to follow Aurelias's path, putting my feet where his had been. Because Lin hadn't and she had fallen into the pit, and now she was bleeding and unconscious. We were heading upwards, large rocks barring our way. Aurelias started to climb, placing his feet into available niches, and I took every step that he did. And climbing upwards, my face to the sky, I felt the slightest tough of cold on my face.

And there was a wetness on my eyelashes, yet I wasn't crying. That's when I saw small flakes of snow standing out against the dark grey of the rocks. The clouds had come, brining the unwelcome snow. And as we climbed, flurries drifted from the dismal sky, making things even more uncomfortable.

Aurelias had stopped whistling, his attention on climbing. He looked down at me. "This snow is coming down faster and faster. Hmm…it was the dark of the moon last night, before these blasted clouds obscured the sky. Prime hunting times for the Yeti; they'll be hungry right now. Watch your step, mortal!"

I shivered, from the cold and fear and hunger clawing at my belly. Yetis? I had read about them, but dismissed them as the daydreams of attention seeking amateur mountaineers. But now I wasn't so sure. I didn't know what to believe or doubt, because I had been sucked into this crazy cross county adventure with my sister, Lin. It was almost like _Around the World in Eighty Days_. But unlike Phineas Fogg, I wasn't going to fall in love and marry someone who wasn't a relative.

I scowled. And to make matters worse, Aurelias had kicked a handful of snow off the top of a rock as he climbed. And naturally, it fell on me, landing on my face and sliding down the back of my coat and melting. And it was cold and an unexpected surprise. And I couldn't get the stupid melting snow from my neck without dumping Lin on the rocks. So I was miserable, cold, and along with that, wet.

And as I was climbing, to make my day, there was a growl from below. I looked down, afraid. There was a Yeti, with five of its brethren, climbing up the rocks. It was covered with grayish white fur, helping it blend in with the snowy rocks. It had monkey-like paws, flexible and hairless, like an orangutan's. It climbed with ease; its long arms looking like a mad artist had stretched the physique of a human.

It climbed quickly, faster than I had imagined, and it communicated to its friends with a series of grunts, growls, and clicks. Its dexterous hands and jointed feet grabbed hold of every rock, its swinging arms bringing it closer and closer to me.

Aurelias heard their loud noises and started to climb faster. I followed, my desperation and fear lending me strength. But still, the six Yetis climbed, following us. They were huge, about six feet in height and covered in thick, shaggy fur that smelled disgusting.

Aurelias stopped climbing, and I couldn't see him anymore. And then my cold, scratched hands felt for the next rock, but there wasn't one. There was some flat, icy surface above. My hands scrabbled for it, and with effort, I pulled myself onto that slick surface.

It was a sort of ledge, a narrow one, formed on the side of the mountain. It might have been, long ago, a pile of rocks. But accumulated snow had been too much, and the weight of it had pushed it down, making that hill of rocks that I had to climb, a few minutes before.

Aurelias made no move to help me, he just started climbing up the ledge away from me. And I held Lin, backing to the part of the ledge that faced the rock wall. And that's when the first arm of one of the Yetis flung itself onto the edge of the ledge. I kicked at it, and watched it retreat. But it found another place to put its hand.

All twelve pairs of hands found their way onto the ledge. But it was getting harder to see, more and more flurries of snow drifting from the sky. I looked up, hoping Aurelias would come to my aid. And I saw him climb up higher and higher, ignoring me and Lin.

**Author's Note: Review and flame me, please! It just makes me laugh, those authors that are afraid of criticism. Hah! But if you're a creepy flamer and stalker combination, then that's going too far.**

**So, what exactly happens next? Sorry for the cliff hanger here, but I am too lazy to add anything more. Heck, this is an extended version of a chapter, with more that thirty percent more text! So, to get a next chapter, you'll have to review. Because the best (or at least mediocre) things in life don't come free.**

**And like Chiron says, "**_**There's no such thing as a free lunch!**_**"**

Also, I'm working on a new PJO story, and hopefully that'll go well. :)

And just a note in the note, I finished this chapter ages ago, but since no one was reviewing, I kept it back. But then I realized that writing isn't about how many reviews you've got so you can show it off to others, but about expressing yourself so that the police can tell by your comments and style how morbid you are when you're dead in a homicide.


	17. Yeti Attack

Just tell me what you're thinking. At this point, the story is just about over. Too bad. No more sequels or anything after this. Possibly going to be at the most, four more chapters. Plus an epilogue.

**Chapter 17**

**Shape shifter in the Crater**

So I was holding Lin, my eyes on the hands groping on the edge of the ledge, with a growing sense of horror. I started to realize what kind of situation I was in. I could abandon Lin, something I would never do, and climb up after Aurelias. Leaving Lin would slow down the Yetis, but I could never, ever bring myself to do that. So with a moment of thought, and dread filling my stomach, I called out.

"Aurelias!" I yelled brashly, the wind whipping away my words and making them echo around the mountains, "If you help us, I'll let you go!"

But I wasn't so incautious and brazen. I didn't say exactly _when_ I'd let him go. And I hoped he didn't notice.

He turned to me, his pink eyes narrowing in confusion and wariness. He hesitated – but soon he seemed to come to a decision. He stopped climbing – and threw himself off the face of the mountain.

His shape wavered as he fell, becoming distorted and blurry, until he was a white streak that landed on the ledge without a sound. There was a roar, a bit like the white bear he was, with the same hints of scorn. But it was crueler and louder and higher pitched, turning into a shrilling snarl that made my ears hurt. Aurelias was a white, spotted cat.

But not just any cat. He was a leopard, a snow leopard, one that threw itself at the Yetis, clawing at their faces and scratching at their eyes, screaming out his triumph as his enemies fell. The pack of supplies was still on his back, but now that he was much smaller than a human, the straps hung loose. I watched as a Yeti pulled at it, ripping the straps. And I watched as it fell off, down on the rocks below. _That was our last bag of supplies._

Aurelias seemed not to notice. He jumped onto the back of a Yeti, his back claws tearing off the think fur, digging in to the skin underneath. He savaged the throat of one, and it fell off the ledge, a scream on its wrinkled lips petering off into a whimper when it hit the bottom with a loud, sickening crunch.

And after he attacked and killed every Yeti, did he sit down and lick his fur, pushing the bodies off with a disgusted face. Then Aurelias turned to me, his pink tongue licking at the Yetis' blood staining his bright white fur.

"Now that's done. I expect you need her fixed,"-he nodded at Lin, his tongue fixing a patch of fur into place,-"I'll be right back." He leapt up, his tail swishing from side to side, and jumped from rock to rock, until he was out of sight.

I cradled Lin's head in my arms, sighing. We huddled behind a rock, out of the bitter, blasting wind. I closed my eyes, ignoring my common sense which told me that those who went to sleep in the cold never woke up again.

It was a clicking sound that woke me, like a hammer gently tapping a nail. There was a crunch, and then Aurelias was standing, in leopard form, on the rock that I was crouched behind.

He held a bawling kid in his mouth, a baby mountain goat, its eyes dilated with fear. There was blood trickling down its legs. And Aurelias shook it in his jaws, trying to make it shut up, but all it did was make it cry louder. It was piteous bleat, and it made me look away.

Aurelias jumped in front of me, the goat dangling from his jaws. He dropped it on the ground. "This is for her. You want to get to the Roof, right? It has enough life force to heal her wound. Are you just going to sit there and stare at it? Take the life before it dies. It'll be food when you're done. Do you want me to kill it for you?" He pushed the goat forwards with his black padded paw.

I nodded, a lump in my throat. I had never purposely killed a mammal before, and didn't intend to start. Aurelias sighed, and a single claw popped out his paw.

"Put her hand on its neck, on the jugular, yes, right there." He requested, a look of superiority on his face. He lowered his paw.

As I arranged Lin's hand on the neck of the goat, his claw swiped down like a tiny dagger, cutting a two inch incision next to Lin's fingertips. The blood started to drip down, forming puddles on the ground which quickly froze in the cold.

As Lin's fingers lay in the blood, a white misty substance drifted from the cut. The goat had stopped twitching, and its eyes were rolling around its head. It moved less and less, as more the white stuff emanated from it. The stuff was absorbed by Lin. It twisted around her writes and forearms, to form a white cloud around her midsection, where she was impaled by the stalagmite.

Aurelias and I watched, but his attention was more on the goat, which had stopped jerking and lay still, in death. The cloud was forming thicker around Lin's stomach.

"All the life is gone now," Aurelias declared, "We can't cook it, because other Yetis on the mountain will be alerted of our presence; they've probably found the bodies of their comrades by now. We'll have to eat it raw. No problem for me, or her, either."

His claw, stained at the tip with blood, went to the dead goat's stomach. "As neither of you mortals are in a condition to skin and gut it, I will have to do the honors." He grinned, showing off a menacing set of teeth. Was that a strip of Yeti fur in there?

Aurelias sliced a neat, straight cut with his claw. The offal fell out, landing on the ground with a soft squelch. He grinned, a strange looking face for a cat. He began to gut the goat; pulling out the intestines and cracking the ribs open to remove the heart and lungs. His once immaculate fur was now stained with red blood that matched the color of his crimson eyes.

After he was done, there was a pile of guts and other internal organs on the rocky, frozen ground. The he started pulling back the pale white skin of the goat, revealing the dark red meat. He sliced off square chunks, which he placed with care on a flat slab of rock. They landed with a _plop!_ and dripped blood.

"This'll be your dinner. Enjoy it." He turned away, tearing at the remnants of the goat, and coating his white whiskers with blood.

"Lin!" I looked over to her, and I saw that the white mist that had surround her abdomen in a ring was now gone. She smiled weakly at me, and crawled over the small pile of meat.

"I'm so hungry. There's only this meat, right?" She poked it with her index finger, and a few drips of blood oozed out. She cupped her hands and picked it up, biting in deeply, the blood trickling down her chin. I was reminded of someone eating a very juicy orange, but this was way more disgusting.

"Yeah, Aurelias lost the last pack fighting the Yetis. I guess we have to eat it. I mean, if we have to get to the Roof of the World." And so I steeled myself and ate the horrible squashy meat. I gulped down the wet squares, wincing at the taste of iron, and wishing I had some water to wash away the taste. I felt the blood, and tried to ignore it, wiping it on my sleeve before it could dry on my face and leave me with a red goatee.

After we were done, Lin buried the bones and offal of the meat, and we set off. We moved faster than before, because we weren't burdened down by the heavy packs. But we had no food either. Our feet tramped over the snow, leaving deep footprints.

I wished we had snowshoes, because we were using so much energy, and we didn't have food. But our feet indented the snow, and sun started to set, stretching our shadows till they were a hundred feet behind us, making us look like giants, not two kids and a cat.

In a way, I envied Aurelias. He could eat what he wanted with ease, and his thickly padded furry feet made sure that he didn't sink into the snow. Even though he was a prisoner of the gods and in exile.

Lin's breath clouded the bitter air. "We can't keep going like this. It's sunset. And since we're in this little glacial valley or whatever, there are no rocks big enough to get behind to get away from the wind that's picking up. We have to get to the Roof. It's set in a sort of crater in the top of the mountain. Or else we'll freeze to death."

"Aurelias!" She called, over the voice of the howling wind, "we need you!"

He padded over, his feet leaving light, feathery imprints in the snow behind him. He scowled; disdain was dripping almost visibly from his mouth. "What do you want now? I saved you from the Yetis, I brought you food!"

"We need to get to the roof. There's a cold wind here, and in a few hours, it'll start to freeze us in our tracks. Walking is too slow; we need to get out of this valley. I need you to turn into a mountain sheep or what ever indigenous creature with sure feet." She demanded, blowing on her hands for warmth.

"Whatever my mistress commands." Aurelias bowed, and his voice was cold, even more frigid than the wind. "But remember, my mistress promised to set her faithful servant free. I hope you'll be remembering your bargain." And with that, his legs started to stretch, and horns burst from his head, curling around and around. They formed a tight spiral, and his spots started to disappear, leaving him with shaggy white fur.

But the think that stayed constant about him were his eyes: flat pupiled, but still the dark pink in all of his forms. He also kept his personality – his calculating viciousness, and his cruel hatred for the gods and everything related to them.

Aurelias got to his knees, burying them in the snow. Lin got on first, her fingers clutching the curling ram's horns. I mounted with hesitation; I was afraid he'd try and throw us off. But he didn't. He just got to his feet, heaved a sigh, and began bounding over the rocks.

The wind tore at us, making our teeth chatter and our fingers numb. But we were moving, faster than we ever could make it walking. Aurelias leapt from rock ledge to overhang, from clumps of ice to patches of sharp, slippery, solidified snow. He never lost his footing or slipped, and propelled us higher and higher to the Roof of the World.

I fell asleep on his back, so tired. I had been sorely stressed, and hadn't slept in a day of carrying Lin and climbing rocks. I kept a firm grip around Lin's waist, and closed my eyes.

I fell on the ground with a thud. My eyes fluttered open, and I saw Lin on her knees, her chest heaving, trying to get her wind back. I lay on my back, and propped myself up on my elbows.

I surveyed my surroundings. There was a ridge enveloping this shallow pit; it circled this flat piece of earth. The sun was weak and high, and the sky was a bright blue; no clouds were in sight.

"We're too high up, that's why there aren't any clouds." Lin noted, casually looking around us. "We're in the crater, at the Roof of the World. There's supposed to some kind of 'Root of Time' thing here. In other words, a time machine. Father Time created it years ago, linking the present to the past and future. I wonder if it's still here."

"Aye, it's still here." It came from the right of us, where there was a bear with a chain around his neck. Aurelias.

"It's around that rock pile, over there." He indicated with his snout. "I saw it earlier; I am not sure if it's still functional after millennia of silence and nonuse. But theoretically, it should work perfectly fine. Better hurry up and let me go; I hear some of Kronos's minions trying to climb up here; they'll be on you in a few minutes." His round, white ears twitched in the direction of the ridge.

Lin and I ran forwards, closer to the center of the crater. And set in the exact middle, surrounded by the walls of the crater, was a glittering round loop made of ice.

It was a twisted loop, more like a Möbius Strip than anything else. And it was made of clear, flawless ice. It was about twelve feet tall with enough room through the middle for a single person to walk through.

"Hurry up!" Aurelias growled, "You promised!" He loped toward us, his huge paws sending up flurries of snow. "They'll be on us in less than a minute now!"

There was a roar that came from the ridge. And then there was a huge explosion, and a part of the ridge was gone, turning into rocky rubble that slid down the mountain, bringing down sheets of snow that would turn into an avalanche near the base.

Monstrous soldiers with beaten bronze armor and rotating points on their spears bellowed, shaking their horned heads. Large, yellow, pointed teeth jutted out from their bottom lips; their cloven feet made them surefooted over the uneven ground.

Valkyries, clad in heavy furs, handling battle axes with ease, stalked forwards, tossing their blonde hair in the wind. And more monsters followed, entering through the gap in the crater ridge.

"Set me free!" thundered Aurelias, pawing the ground. He pulled back his lips in an annoyed growl, and his claws popped out with a _schick_! "Or we must fight. But to what end?"

**Author's Note: Don't worry, I'm not going to quit writing after this. I have a few ideas for another PJO fic. Or two.**

**One thing about me: I don't really like using canon characters. Because then I'm restrained to the original author's personality for them, and I'd rather not have that. So, most probably, my other stories will feature original characters.**

**And once again, I'm too lazy to just finish this chapter and not leave this as a cliff hanger. But my hand hurts, because I slammed a window shutter closed on my finger, and it bled and partially cracked a nail. So I'm obviously not writing this for just my own benefit. **

**But this is a forty percent extra text chapter, and you'll just have to make do with what you've got.**


	18. Hypocrites

So, this is the last true chapter. There will be an epilogue, though. Nineteen chapters in total, then I'm finally finished!!

**Chapter 18**

**What Hypocrites We Are!**

Aurelias reared on his furry hind legs, and then turned to Lin. "I see him…Luke. And another, a satyr. She has white hair. Strange." He pointed with his white muzzle at the approaching figures that were becoming clearer through the rock dust and ice chips from the explosion of the crater wall.

Lin's eyes widened. "He was way before our parents' time. And he doesn't look like he has aged!" She ran to Aurelias's side, fumbling at the collar.

The silvery chain fell into her hands, and Aurelias began to glow, growing taller and thinner. He towered over Lin, who was on her knees, Catena in her hands. Lin looked up, her mouth open, and a look of fear in her eyes.

She pushed herself up pulling her curved sword out. She held it out in front of her, by the blade. "I thought you might need this, Aurelias."

Aurelias was a pillar of white fire, too bright to look at, and so hot he melted the patches of ice around him. He rose, taller and taller, twenty feet now. "You trust me?"

"You have served us so well, and you haven't killed us yet." She smiled optimistically at him. "I hope you choose the right path."

"So long…" He murmured, his form shrinking down. "So long…I have not been trusted in millennia, and even then, Caecilia never trusted me fully. Very well, good luck with your journey. I'll hold this motley bunch while you use the Root."

He took the proffered sword, and the bright glow softened to a dull whiteness: Aurelias, back in man form, his grey cloak swirling behind him. And I saw that the grey was lightening, growing closer and closer to white.

Lin dragged me to the Root of Time, an arch of clearest ice, like a glass sculpture or something. "We have to go through it, I think. But you realize that if we go through with this, it'll be changing the past? And if we do that, we will change the future, and this, us would have never happened. I might have never met you."

"But we have no other choice, right?" I smiled, "And we have to save the world. It probably won't be as dramatic as Superman, but we have to do it."

"You're right." Lin pursed her lips, and then came to a decision. "I want to go back more than twenty years. To find Luke, and kill him. We need to cut off the snake's head."

So Lin and I walked through the Root of Time, into some otherworld in between place. We were suspended in a blank whiteness, walking on nothing. And all around us, there were open black doors, and the white light couldn't penetrate it.

"This must be where we can enter any time, any where," Lin whispered. She walked along the rows and rows of black rectangles. "Which one are we supposed to go through?"

"I'm not sure," I replied, following. "But in most fantasy books, when the main characters find themselves time traveling by magical means, all they have to do is imagine the scene. Maybe it'll work this time."

Lin blinked. "This isn't a fantasy story, you know, Alexei. This is real life."

I shook my head. "Are you sure? Perhaps we are the day dreams of some higher order, the metaphysical. Maybe we don't even exist. You should at least try it."

"Fine," she snapped, then closed her eyes, bringing her fingers to her temples in concentration. "I'm imagining a scene twenty eight years ago. It is high noon, and the sun is blazing down on a dock in a busy seaside metropolis. There is a cruise ship at the harbor, a white one with a figurehead of a woman in a spotless white chiton.

"But one strange thing about her is that she looks like she is screaming in terror, like the sculptor is some kind of crazy talented axe murderer, because even though the expression isn't what you would expect, it's flawless: pure emotion.

"The cruise ship has hundreds of windows and three decks. I can see the name painted in black on the bow. It has been christened the _Princess Andromeda_."

As Lin was talking, I closed my eyes and imagined the scene with her. She was very descriptive, and I saw in my mind's eye, the huge cruise ship docked at the harbor.

"The camera zooms in, and we see the top deck of the _Princess Andromeda_. It looks like a battle has taken place, because the wooden deck is splintered, and the hand rail on the sides is broken. The floor is wet, and a bear-man hybrid is mopping up, being ordered around.

"He is being ordered around by a young man with a scarred face and blond hair, looking like an angry male model. The man is pointing at the damage and screaming. There are several huge piles of sand scattered about, but they are getting smaller because the sea air is blowing it over the sides.

"Another bear man is walking around the deck, using a broom to push the sand piles off. A snake woman comes up, tapping the blond man on the shoulder, and points him toward the inner parts of the cruise ship."

I could just see it, whirling gulls in the hot blue sky, waves lapping at the sides of the ship. I could almost smell the salty air. In fact, I _could_ smell it.

My eyes flew open. There_ were_ gulls soaring above, screeching. The deck below me was gently swaying, and a soft breeze was ruffling my hair. Hang on, a deck? Where was I? And as I turned to look around, a bear man janitor saw me. He pointed, and roared, like Aurelias but somehow with more anger and it was _loud_.

"HEROES ON THE DECK!!" He waved a mop at me, drops of water flying off and spraying me. "ALERT!! ALERT!! ALERT!!"

Someone grabbed my arm, and I almost wet my pants. "Alexei. It's me. We have to get out of here – this is real!"

"We can't, Lin! We have a job to do!" I cried, my feet slipping as I skidded on the wet deck. I could feel the drumming of feet on wood; the monsters were after us.

Lin pulled open a hatch, shoving me into it. She slid in after me, pushing me, goading me to hurry up. "Keep on going! We need a place to hide. I _think_ I have a plan."

I saw an open door, and ran in, slamming and locking the door just after Lin. "We don't have Aurelias, and I can't hold the door for long, are we just going to die here?"

Lin shook her head. "No, _you're_ not going to die."

I gaped at her, following her words. "If I'm not going to die, what's going to happen to you?"

"Self-sacrifice." She smiled, so sadly, looking down. "I don't have a knife, but I kept these-" she pulled four claws out of her pocket "-and they should be pretty sharp. After all, they came from the Rakshasa. As long as I don't crush them by accident, they should work."

"Lin, what are you going to do?" I demanded.

"Something that I never believed in. What a hypocrite I am." She shook her head, smiling. "But with a blaze of glory."

She picked up a claw, sinking it into her wrist. She bit her lip as the blood poured out. "Alexei…this isn't something you should see…just go! There's a balcony out there, and if you jump, you'll be okay. We're next to the docks, so the water's pretty shallow. Please go, Alexei, for me!"

"Will I be stuck here, in this time?" I pulled open the glass doors for the balcony. I pulled myself over the railing, one step at a time. Just like Rose when she was going for suicide in _Titanic_. Except that Rose was a spoiled little debutante. And I thought with a grin that I wasn't much different. Spoiled as hell, unable to take care of myself. Leaving someone who didn't deserve it to die for me.

"If you can think of exactly the scene of when we left, it may work. After all it was your idea. And you'll be able to get back; nature abhors vacuums, and you're missing from your time." She replied evenly, and then hissed with pain. I could hear her mutter incantations, words that I couldn't understand.

I jumped.

Hit the water with a splash, the water going up my nose. The impact drove all the breath from my lungs, leaving me stunned and helpless. And when I started be oxygen starved, my brain swung slowly into the situation. I began paddling to the wooden docks, fast as I can. Because I knew what would happen.

The _Princess Andromeda_ exploded. It created a huge wave, pushing me to the docks. It was Lin's last gift. Because she probably knew that I wasn't a good swimmer.

Lin. She was dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, and gone. I closed my eyes, trying not to let tears leak out. I couldn't stop them, and so I thought about the crater to try and distract me.

I whispered to myself, drowning all my emotions out.

"Frigid mountaintop, middle of a crater. Standing in front of an ice sculpture: a warped loop, almost like an '8', except twelve feet tall. Standing, then walking, feet crunching in snow.

"It's freezing, and my breath is visible. I hear the roaring of various monsters, and the high pitched snarl of Aurelias. I hear the curved blade slicing through the air. It whistles past an opponent, and the opponent taunts, screaming that Aurelias has missed.

"Then its toothy smile turns to confusion as it is falls into four pieces. Aurelias has decapitated it. I hear all the sounds of battle. All of them, from the groans of pain, to the cries of triumph, crows of joy."

I could feel the cold, hear the sounds, and see the arch.

I saw that Lin's sword was like the Vorpal Blade in Aurelias's more than capable hands. It went _snicker-snack_, decapitating, whirling through the confusion. Strangely, Lewis Carroll's rhyme came to my mind.

_"He took his vorpal sword in hand_

Aurelias held his sword, spinning it through his fingers.

_One, two! One, two! _

He struck and jabbed and parried and thrusted and feinted. All around, monsters were falling to the ground.

_And through and through _

Shick! His sword slid into a body cleanly, the thin blade striking the heart without even touching a rib.

_The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!_

The blade hit the armor of the monsters, bouncing off their helmets with little pings, and when he hit their sternums, there was a dull click.

_He left it dead, and with its head _

Aurelias cut off the heads, straight through the neck guard.

_He went galumphing back."_

And when their heads hit their ground, cracking the ice, he set them on fire. His white fire raged up and down the carcasses, and after a few seconds, they were completely gone. No sand piles or anything.

Some of the dead bodies he had accidentally passed over, and he came loping back, a grin of bloodlust on his face. Fire flew from his fingertips, igniting fresh bodies and hastening the destruction of the old.

Soon Aurelias stood in a field of burning white fires. He watched them in silence, until all the fires had flickered down to nothing and disappeared. Then he seemed to come to his senses, twisting around to me.

"She's not here, is she?" He asked.

I shook my head. "Gone."

"What a waste." Then he drifted off, through the gap in the crater.

I noticed that he cradled Lin's sword, like it was something precious, not just a sadly battered piece of metal. Then he was a bear, the sword in his mouth. And then he was gone.

**Author's Note: Yeah, I was in this sort of mood. My star is falling, I'm losing my talent, not that I had much in the first place.**


	19. Deja Vu

So, I haven't updated in 20 days, but since it's only 3 days before school's out, I have some time away from studying for end of the year exams.

I guess you deserve it, for reviewing and being fans of my work.

It seems, with the release of _The Battle of the Labyrinth_, that some of my guesses about Nico and his magic were right. Strange language for spells, a sacrifice, black cloak, skull jewelry, and black clothes.

Hmm…blood was my sacrifice, but they used Cokes and Happy Meals. But Minos did say that they used blood millennia ago…so I was part right.

**Chapter 19**

**Déjà Vu**

My eyes fluttered open, but my conscience was still weary. I grasped at the last tendrils of a pleasant dream, hoping that the remnants of that adventure wouldn't fade. A dream of dancing white bears and a cloud wreathed mountain hung in my mind, but I sighed, pushing myself out of bed. And the dream left, leaving a faint sense of loss, one that I ignored, in order to pursue my mundane life.

As I left my bed, I went over the checklist in my brain. It was routine; something I did everyday.

Yep, I was still Alexander Nicholas Prentiss, and yes, I still lived in Rome. Nothing had changed, no matter what I wished for.

Because I'd always wanted to be _someone_, not the ordinary, gangly teenager that I was. I wanted something special to happen to me, like the discovery of a magical superpower or something. But I was always, eternally remaining that normal, average kid. I sighed.

At the least, I wanted a sibling. But I had none, and so I was alone.

I walked to the breakfast nook, staring at the galettes and the juice on the table. My mother sat opposite, reading a newspaper as she sipped at a mug of coffee.

"Your father said that we should move to New York and live with him, my prince." She smiled at me, wrinkles in the corners of her eyes betraying her tiredness, weariness, and her loss of sleep. "Your father pays the bills, so I thought it would be for the best."

"Mama! Father wants to make a purchase or something, and he has to show off his perfect family. Trophy wife, check, normal son, check. I don't want to go; I've just started a new school year!" I said, counting things off on my fingers. "Plus, I don't want to lose all my friends, and-"

She cut me off. "Alexander, you know it's for the best, don't you? It's the only way we can live like this!" She gestured around us, to the mahogany cabinets on the walls, the stained glass kitchen window, the round, solid oak dining table, frescoed ceilings.

For the second time in this short day, I sighed. "Fine, mama. We don't have any other choice."

-

We packed up our bags, and used the tickets that my father, Jonathan Prentiss had sent my mother days before.

I helped my mother load suitcases into taxis, paid the taxi driver in the correct number of euros, and went through the gate to the plane.

And on the plane, I watched my mother's tired eyes.

She had been pretty, years ago, before she had married my father. She was like a rose, fresh and beautiful, enjoying the days of spring.

And like a rose, she had faded. Stem drooping, petals wilting. But she was still a rose, but one that had aged. She was still pretty, compared to others, but she'd never be restored to youth.

I just daydreamed on the plane, watching the golden coins on my mother's bracelet jingle, thinking of the morning, when everything had seemed so perfect and ordinary.

That dream I had…the white bear and the clouded, misty mountain. No, it hadn't been just one mountain, it had been more…hundreds of them speared upwards, their high stony peaks capped in white, frosty, pristine snow. But there was one that was taller than the others, a father among his children, one that stood high, higher above its frigid brethren.

And that bear…had I seen it before? I couldn't have, I had never seen a bear outside of a zoo. But I retained a strange sense of déjà vu, a feeling that I had never experienced like this before. It was quite disconcerting; I felt like I was redoing the motions of the me I'd reincarnated.

And for some strange reason, I could feel myself thinking, thoughts that just drifted in with no sense or control.

_Hmm….my mother will bribe me, or make it up to me, or whatever, for the relocation…._

This thought came to me, and I just pushed it away, thinking it was nonsense. But some part of me was skeptical. I sighed, flicking through the selection of movies provided by the stewardess. There wasn't much, so I just leant against my soft, puffy seat, tapping my fingers on the armrest.

And I jerked upright when my mother turned to me, a soft smile on her face.

"Alex, cheer up. You'll live in the lap of luxury. Why don't we go to Elmont? It's in New York, and you'd really love to see the races."

I gaped at her, my arms gripping the armrests, digging into the padded vinyl.

"Alex, my prince, are you all right?" she asked, concerned.

I nodded, swallowing. "I'm just a bit airsick, Mama, no need to worry."

She smiled at me again, her fears pushed away, and turned back to her magazine, her fingers twisting the golden bracelet on her wrist. She always did that when she was worried, her manicured nails making the gold circles jingle.

The plane hit the asphalt, the tires skidding on the painted asphalt. I jerked awake, my head full of the dizzying dreams of climbing that tall mountain, braving the glacial air, with a companion. I tried to remember his or her face, but it all came back to me as a blur, and as I tried to think about it, the more it escaped me. So I just gave up.

As I left the plane through a tube-like thing stuck to the side of the plane, I _knew_, just _knew, _that my father wasn't going to be there waiting for me.

At the airport, there was a man who held a card. And I was right, right again. On the card were my mother's and my name, and it elicited a wave of déjà vu. I had seen this before, somewhere. A movie? I wasn't so sure, maybe it was just a coincidence.

The man was a chauffer and drove a black Mercedes to a towering apartment building on the rich side of the city.

We got out, and entered the spacious lobby with cloud themed painting on the ceiling and burbling, merry fountains. The man showed us our apartment, way up at the top of the building. Its floor didn't have a number on the elevator buttons, but was marked as "P". Penthouse suite.

As soon as I got up to my room, I fell asleep, exhausted from jet lag. And when my thoughts surfaced back to reality, I half expected to find bags of clothes from the department stores nearby. I wasn't certain, but there was something nagging me to…

I got up, and looked around. One wall was a giant window, white carpeting on the floor, and in the corner, bingo, there were the shopping bags. I groaned. Was I a psychic or something?

I just threw on some clothes and skipped breakfast, just got a taxi and went to school. Like a normal kid. It was a public school, with some grafitti on the walls that a janitor had tried valiantly to remove, but failed. For some reason, I knew the location, and just went into the office to get a schedule.

I had no books, so I had to take some of the old ones that belonged to the school, and thanks to my father's influence, I wasn't questioned by office workers.

I didn't pay much attention to lessons; I just thought hard, distracted from "education" by the myriad of thoughts whirling around in my head. Was I developing some sort of super power, just like I'd always dreamed of? Or not…some strange quirk of the universe trying to trick me.

And with these thoughts, I went to lunch as the bell rang, just walking. I didn't know where the cafeteria was, but my feet, with no consent from my mind, brought me to the packed room.

I just plopped myself down at one of the seats, propping my head up on my hands, scribbling doodles on one of the notebooks that I had brought with me from class.

"Hey," someone called over my head, to a friend a few yards away, "it's a new kid!"

It was a girl's voice, and I turned to see a girl with white blonde hair and an affinity for bright colored clothes. She stood over me, and was chatting to a few friends buzzing around her like flies.

And my mouth said "Cassandra", but my head said "Who is that girl?"

My mouth was the only one people could hear.

The girl's head jerked away from her friends to my direction. "Sandy, actually. Who told you?" She scanned the row of friends, eyes narrowed.

"Umm..I must have heard in the hallway or something," I stammered, nervous and flustered. How did I know that?

"Hey, isn't he that kid that they found wandering around in Nepal?" one of the friends asked, stepping forwards. It was a boy with dark brown hair.

I nodded, still nervous. "Yes…I was."

"Cool! What were you doing?"

"I wasn't wandering around aimlessly…I was looking for-" I stopped, flushing red. I didn't know what I was looking for. I felt like I had amnesia or something, trying to dredge up the memories of a past life.

"Well, I was guessing you were doing marijuana. Or opium, I think they have that in Nepal." The boy said, smiling. All the hangers on giggled. He was the group clown, I guessed.

The girl with white blonde hair, Cassandra, laughed, her voice high and pure. There was no way that hair could be natural; it must have been bleached like that, I thought distantly. Hmm…

"Anways-"

"Alex" I filled in my name.

"-Alex, just stay with us, and we'll make your high school experience…special." She grinned at me, showing off her white, perfect teeth. "And try to avoid that lot over there." She nodded to the dark corner of the cafeteria, where kids in black and monochrome colors leaned against the walls and talked about…who knows what.

"Okay…" I replied hesitantly, "now what?"

"You enjoy your lunch." Cassandra, no, Sandy, brought a paper sack and tossed it onto the table. "It's way better than cafeteria food."

It was a sub sandwich, chips, and a can of coke, and it definitely looked better than the school spaghetti that looked like grey worms in red mud.

I had fun with my new friends, and tried to ignore that nagging sense of doubt that something was wrong. But what could be wrong?

**The End.**

**Author's Note: Now, how did you like it? If you're smart enough, you can figure out what happened. It's time travel, for God's sake. **

**And if you're too stupid, I can make things easier for you. **

**One, they went back in time and changed the past.**

**Two, since they changed the past, it changed the future/present.**

**Three, there is a reason for this déjà vu feeling.**

**And also, I had this last chapter worked out for AGES, and it's finally time to put it on paper. Tell me what you think, you hate the ending right? But it's the only reasonable one.**


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